For this intimate return to the stage, after his last tour in 2016 interrupted by health problems, Michel Polnareff, the interpreter ofWe’ll all go to heaven chose to reuse the 1972 Olympia poster where he revealed his posterior and which earned him a conviction for indecent assault, resulting in his exile to the United States.
.@MICHELPOLNAREFF
(via @RTLFrance) pic.twitter.com/u2gWpfNqJN— Jean-Francois Guyot (@JFGuyot) November 13, 2022
Fifty years later, the singer multiplies by three, always buttocks in the air, and wears blue, white and red shirts, in snub assumed to the puritan France of the 70s.The fans wanted me to make a piano-voice album. I wondered if I could still sing. I was afraid of myself… On this record, I’m completely naked… I’m very happy to have done it and very proud of the result!“, confides the singer, 78 years old during an interview with AFP during his stay in Paris.
four years later Finally!which had put an end to almost three decades of waiting for his fans (Kâmâ Sutrâ dating back to 1990), the melodist with the blond mane returns with a sober Polnareff sings Polnareff (release scheduled for November 18), in which he accompanied himself alone on the piano in his personal studio in California. The Laze Ball, Goodbye Marilou, Love me, please, love me, The doll who says no…: Polnareff has only retained his hits for this exercise without artifice, the artist’s 11th studio album, which allows you to rediscover his work in a new light, like a private concert at the home of his fans.
With his intact voice, he sings a cappella a version of Everything for my darling. It also offers a spatial version of Holidayshis favorite piano-voice cover, “better than the original“, he believes. Letter to Franceafter a moving piano solo, he hammers out one of the verses: “Once upon a time/You and me/Never forget that… “. As a preview, he had unveiled a few weeks ago a clip of his song-anthem where three avatars of the star, white glasses on their noses, appeared at the piano in the middle of the desert, dressed in blue, white and red.
“Letter to Franceit’s the Marseillaise of expats…”, he says. “This forced exile will never be forgotten… It’s part of the pain of life… But, I don’t like the past… I’m not nostalgic: I like today and the future!“, he confides again. “I’m lucky: my voice is better than before. I can climb as much, and even a little more. Resuming my successes was painful because of personal things that had inspired me at the time, but that I didn’t want to remember… “, he adds. “There are those who will say that Polnareff no longer has any inspiration and is pulling out his old saddlebags… This is completely false! I’ve never composed so many new things!“, assures the singer who announces other albums.
On November 26, the Admiral (as his fans call him) will be the guest of honor at the Star Academy finale: “if Star Ac had existed when I was a street singer, I would have signed up! It’s important to give a showcase to young singers“. His favorite among the new generation? “Clara Luciani, Hoshi, Jérémy Frérot… Newcomers welcome!“
Before finding Polnareff from May 24 in Nice where he will kick off his tour, his fans can always discover (without him) PolnaDreams (reference to the piece Polnarêve from 1974), a “immersive and dreamlike 360 degree experience“inspired by his hits, on view at the Le Palace theater in Paris until March.