Songwriter Yvon Rosier releases his first album ‘Des vies de dingues’

In the region of Grignan (Drôme), Yvon Rosier is known as the white wolf. Many Drôme buildings are the work of his hands or call on him for renovation. A mason by trade, he is nonetheless in love with culture and music in particular. Moreover, he combined the two by installing the Coffee Rosea hotbed of the music scene in the southern region in the 1990s, an establishment recognized for having hosted many artists, including Raoul Petite.

But Yvon Rosier is above all a songwriter himself. And after singing on stage for several decades, he released his first real record on Friday February 4th.

To say of Yvon that he has always written and composed is a sweet understatement. “My first song dates from when I was twelve years old” he specifies. And although he has studied neither music nor music theory, the mason-songwriter always begins his pieces with the melody. This is the first hook on which the words are then added. He adds : “I made songs because the melodies were inspired by me. I don’t really know why. Maybe having been rocked by the radio has something to do with it.”

The lyrics are hard work, the melody is pleasure, it comes by itself

And that’s actually what we feel, from the first listening to Yvon Rosier’s songs, a great musicality with obvious melodies that we find ourselves humming instinctively.

It must be said that the singer-songwriter was supported by guitarist-arranger-producer Pierrejean Gaucher. The latter knew how to bring the musical colors perfectly adapted to the poetic and humorous universe of Yvon.

Several songs are imbued with a relaxed swing atmosphere, for example the title track or Hands up. Latin atmospheres punctuate marcella, Between the 2 rounds Where We dreamed of a farmwhile a hard-rock riff energizes the breaker, or that zappian influences, dear to the musician, illustrate the spoken texts of Empty-handed and dust of time.

And some country touches – I prefer big ones – or folk evoke the seventies, like The canned goods, superb ballad embellished with slide guitar worthy of the references of the genre. A guitar that also knows how to cry in The separationas if to marry the text.

This collaboration between Yvon Rosier and Pierrejean Gaucher was born two years ago, when Yvon came to sing to his friend a text inspired by current events. We were then experiencing the first confinement, and Yvon Rosier expressed his vision of the situation… by explaining to us how to cook a pangolin.

It’s hard to resist this quirky and ironic humor. A component that runs through several texts on the album, from the reversal of roles between poor and rich in The canned goodsself-mockery and lack of modesty in The fairiespassing by the surreal anecdote ofBetween the 2 rounds, a hilarious sketch where the voting booth becomes the scene of lovemaking. A text that could not be better timed, two months before the presidential election.

Current events and the failings of our society are also at the heart of the lyrics. Because if the humor is very present, and even if the spirit of a Bobby Lapointe is not far away with a certain whimsical side, it is often rather on the side of Vian, Brassens, Brel, or even Béranger, that the texts look at. The caustic protrusions point where it hurts: the precariousness of pensions in Hands upthe dictatorship of thinness in, I prefer big ones, or outright police repression in the breaker which would almost recall the approach of Bernie Bonvoisin and Trust.

This somewhat vindictive aspect is undoubtedly no stranger to Yvon’s career. Whoever evokes his childhood in the countryside or his job in Empty-handed and dust of timealso remembered in We dreamed of a farm of the community where he lived in Dieulefit during the 1970s.

And the mason singer delivers a bit of himself in the melancholy The separationthe false misogynist marcellaor tender it I am a lion that Bourvil would probably not have denied.

I’m a tender in fact, I’m not a real lion

A song that defines yvon Rosier well. An eminently sympathetic personality from the first contact and who makes you want to go listen on stage where he talks a lot between songs. “During my show I try to be effective and make people laugh between songs” he explains, “that’s what brings people, because it’s not easy to bring people to a song show.”

However, it is the successful bet with this disc which harmoniously mixes humor, poetry and musicality. We all lead a crazy life, of course, but listening to Yvon Rosier, it becomes pleasant again.

The Scrapbook crazy lives by Yvon Rosier is available on all platforms on February 4

Find the information on his Bandcamp profile