Jean Ferrat
Jean Ferrat was a French singer, songwriter, and poet who enjoyed a long if sometimes controversial career with his passionate songs of love and Leftist politics. Ferrat was born Jean Tenenbaum in Vaucresson, Hauts-de-Seine, on December 26, 1930, the last of four children. His father, a Russian Jew, was a jeweler who relocated the family to Versailles in 1935, but in 1942 he was captured by Axis forces and sent to Auschwitz, where he was executed less than a week later. Young Jean was hidden by Communist members of the French resistance and survived the war; in 1945 he dropped out of school to go to work and help support the family as a chemist's assistant. But he had developed a keen interest in both poetry and performing, and he began playing guitar with a jazz combo, writing songs, and acting with a small theater company. After adopting the stage name Jean Laroche, he began performing as a solo act, and adapted Louis Aragon's poem "Les Yeux d'Elsa" into a song; when it became a hit for singer André Claveau in 1956, it gave the recently renamed Jean Ferrat a major career boost, and he was signed to a record contract in 1958. Ferrat's debut single was a commercial failure, but after forming a partnership with publisher and musical director Gerard Meys, he enjoyed much greater success with 1960's "Ma Mome," and Ferrat soon became a star. Ferrat's songs openly dealt with his political concerns; his 1963 single "Nuit et Brouillard" (Night and Fog) was a meditation on the Holocaust and its consequences, while a number of his other tunes dealt with the struggle of the working class, and he was an outspoken supporter of Fidel Castro, writing a number about him called "Cuba Si." (Ferrat was just as willing to criticize the Soviet Union for its misdeeds, and "Bilan" was a song attacking the failures of the USSR.) Despite the media's hesitancy toward his more controversial material, Ferrat enjoyed significant popular success through the 1960s, but he was never comfortable with performing live and withdrew from the concert stage in 1973. Living in the rural village of Antraigues, Ferrat published poetry, adapted the work of others and continued to write songs, periodically releasing new albums through the 1970s and '80s. His final album, another collection of musical adaptations of Aragon's poetry, was released in 1995. After a long illness, Ferrat died on March 13, 2010.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
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Discography
244 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Ses plus grandes chansons
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 28 Feb 2020
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Ferrat chante Aragon 1971 (Mix 2020)
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 6 Mar 2020
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Au printemps de quoi rêvais-tu ? 1969
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Mar 1969
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Nuit et brouillard 1963
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1963
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
La montagne 1964
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1964
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
La commune 1971
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Feb 1971
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Deux enfants au soleil 1961
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 6 Mar 2020
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Potemkine 1965
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1965
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Camarade 1969
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1969
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Cuba si 1967
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1967
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Maria 1967 (Mix 2020)
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1966
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
À moi l’Afrique 1972
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Mar 1972
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
La fête aux copains 1962
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 6 Mar 2020
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Le meilleur de Jean ferrat en 20 titres (Mono Version)
French Music - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 2014
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Restera-t-il un chant d'oiseau
French Music - Released by Temey on 6 Dec 2024
Available in24-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Ses plus grandes chansons
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 28 Feb 2020
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Ferrat chante Aragon 1971 (Mix 2020)
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 6 Mar 2020
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Au printemps de quoi rêvais-tu ? 1969
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Mar 1969
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Nuit et brouillard 1963
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1963
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
La montagne 1964
French Music - Released by Universal Music Division Barclay on 1 Dec 1964
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
1979 - 1980 : Les instants volés - L'amour est cerise
French Music - Released by Temey on 1 Jan 1988
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo