Every day, a personality invites herself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Today, they are two. Author, composer and performer Laurent Voulzy and Frédéric Brun, writer and son of lyricist Jean Dréjac.
The author, composer and performer, Laurent Voulzy and Fréderic Brun, writer and son of lyricist Jean Dréjac paints a portrait of an artist who left us 20 years ago this year. Jean Dréjac wrote more than 400 songs and a good number of them entered what is called the collective memory. The man on the motorbike by Edith Piaf (1956), Oum the dolphin by Michel Legrand (1970), Ah! The little white wine in 1943 or even The Saturday Night Ball in 1946, it’s him. Jean Dréjac has collaborated with many artists such as Serge Reggiani, Dalida, Yves Montand, Charles Aznavour, Marcel Amont, Juliette Gréco, the Compagnons de la chanson, etc. He will also have been a centerpiece of Sacem, being its vice-president for the defense of authors’ rights.
>> Behind our voices. Laurent Voulzy and his open chords
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of the lyricist, author and composer, his son comes out: Jukebox Troubadour Box comprising 76 titles, including two previously unreleased and Ah! The little white wine taken over by Laurent Voulzy. There will also be a tribute concert on May 14, 2023 at the Café de la Danse in Paris.
franceinfo: Frédéric Brun, your father had this side “My father, this artist, this hero“?
Frederic Brown: Yes, he crossed a century in songs. It started in 1943 with Ah! The little white wine and he still wrote a last album for Serge Reggiani in 2000, which is called Children, be better than us.
My father, Jean Dréjac, lived through many periods between 1943 and 2000, but he always remained faithful to his style, to his way of writing songs.
Frederic Brownat franceinfo
Laurent Voulzy, you find yourself in this project which is just incredible. The idea was to pay homage to him. How did you know, feel, experience Jean Dréjac?
Laurent Voulzy: Like everyone else, I know the song Ah! The little white wine, it is a bit of a part of my life because since the age of eight, I came back to live with my mother in Nogent. So Nogent is a city that meant a lot to me, the Marne. And one day, I was asked to come to the inauguration of a small place Jean Dréjac and very honestly, I did not know the author or the composer of the song, but the song, I knew it well. And there was Frederic. We didn’t know each other yet. We started talking together. We meet two years later in Nogent in a guinguette because I am inducted into the little white wine…
Frederic Brown: The Confrérie du petit vin blanc!
Laurent Voulzy: So we talked and I told her that one day I had sung Ah! The little white wine on TV in a Michel Drucker show at the Pavillon Balthar in Nogent and that I had had a message from his dad who had liked this version which I had sung softly with a guitar. And that’s when Frédéric said to me: “I’m preparing an album with the original performers of my father’s songs and if you want to sing Ah! The little white wine softly the way you sang it on TV, I wish“. I said yes right away.
E
n any case, there is a certainty is that your father was passionate about writing and he was finally convinced that it was the job he wanted to do and that he was going to succeed. At 17, he will manage to convince his parents to let him go to Paris to be able to live his life as an artist. Very soon after, he was spotted. The war that is about to break out. And there is a rather incredible anecdote, it is that in 1940 the Germans will notice it with the STO, therefore the compulsory work service…
Frederic Brown: Yes, because he was refractory to the STO in fact.
They will ask him to sing, to work. They are very sensitive to what he does and he will refuse. This course is amazing.
Frederic Brown: Yes. I wrote a book which is going to be published, which is called John’s novel and I find that my father’s life has a romantic aspect. He left to sing in Alexandria in 1949 and there, there are Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais who went to see him and who made him a drawing as a sign of friendship in this cabaret. But my father, far from Paris, was longing for Paris and he wrote there The Song of Paris (1949), but it was not this song that became famous. In fact, it’s Under Paris Skies in 1951.
Written for the film of the same name by Julien Duvivier and which will be taken over by Paul Anka. Is this song the most iconic? The one that sticks to him the most?
Frederic Brown: Yes.
‘Oh! Le petit vin blanc’ was well known in France and ‘Sous le ciel de Paris’ had the advantage of being known all over the world.
Frederic Brownat franceinfo
For Under the sunthere is Edith Piaf, who called him from New York, once again, and said to him: “I have something incredible to teach you, it is heard everywhere in the United States, thanks to the orchestras“. This song is an incredible story.
Laurent Voulzy: I love this song, this melody is magical. It’s great !
You are proud, Laurent Voulzy, to resume Ah! The little white wine today, with all the symbolism that it represents?
Laurent Voulzy: But yes ! It’s an idea of Alain (Souchon). He told me one day that I was humming Ah! The little white wine at home : “Why don’t you put it on your album? You’re from Nogent, a little white wine counts for you! Play it on your guitar and put it on your album“And then, I never did it and then, why did I do it? It was the meeting with Frédéric. This lunch, these somewhat mysterious things that suddenly happened: Charles d’ Orléans, Jean Dréjac, Alain, three great lyricists, poetry… It’s really quite a story, the Marne, etc. It’s really symbolic.