Juliette Gréco
Muse to the Parisian literary scene of the '50s, godmother of songwriter-led '60s French pop, and a self-reinventing torch singer from the '70s into the 2010s, Juliette Gréco was one of the great French recording artists of the 20th century. Born in Montpellier in 1929, Gréco was classically trained at the Paris Opera as a youngster. Forced to flee Paris at the outbreak of the Second World War, and practically orphaned when her mother was jailed for her resistance to the Nazis in 1943, Gréco sought refuge with her former French teacher in the St. Germain des Prés quarter of Paris.
In the later years of the war, the literary and artistic world of the Left Bank was flourishing, and Gréco became a fixture in this world, befriending Sartre and other writers of renown, and appearing in the theater and on a literary radio show. Her experiences of hardship in the war had influenced her politics and sowed the seeds for the great liberation she flaunted after the war, becoming the pinup for the so-called bohemian scene.
Gréco made an acclaimed debut as a singer in 1949, premiering songs with the words of such leading French poets as Jacques Prévert ("Les Feuilles Mortes"), Jules Laforgue ("L'Eternel Féminin"), and Raymond Queneau ("Si Tu T'Imagines") set to music by Joseph Kosma. In the new post-war songs, lyrics were privileged over the bigger orchestrations favored by singers like Edith Piaf; Gréco's intellectual bent made her the perfect interpreter for this new movement. Her singing style shared the dramatic enunciation of Jacques Brel and the droll delivery of Georges Brassens -- her contemporaries in quite different musical scenes -- while showcasing sensual vocals that were all her own. Gréco released the song "Je Suis Qui Je Suis," again with words by Prévert and music by Kosma, two years later and it was a huge hit for her.
Having toured Brazil and the United States, Gréco returned to Paris in 1954 to triumph at the Olympia Hall with the song "Je Hais les Dimanches," written by a young Charles Aznavour. Devoting most of the rest of the decade to a successful film career in the United States, Gréco returned to Paris in 1959 and began a second phase of her musical career as the patron of a new French generation of songwriters in the early '60s. She collaborated with artists like Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote "La Javanaise" for her, as well as Léo Ferré and Guy Béart. In 1968, then massively famous from high-profile television appearances and her earlier recordings, she released her song "Deshabillez-Moi," which was an openly sexual piece and marked a change from the intellectual, literary slant she had always put on her songs.
After a slight stalling of her recording career in the early '70s due to trouble with record companies, Gréco embarked on the third stage of her career in 1975, collaborating closely with Gérard Jouannest, Jacques Brel's formal pianist, who set many of the texts written for her to music henceforth. She married him in 1989. Further releases in the '80s ("Gréco '83") and '90s (the beautiful "Juliette Gréco") saw her still experimenting, as well as promoting new songwriters like Etienne Roda-Gil and Caetano Veloso. She released "Un Jour d'Été et Quelques Nuits" in 1998, and in 2004 her album Aimez-Vous les Uns les Autres ou Bien Disparaissez was a true return to form, featuring collaborations with young artists Miossec and Benjamin Biolay. The album Le Temps d'une Chanson was released in 2006, and Qu'on Est Bien: La Valse Brune arrived two years later. The studio effort Je Me Souviens De Tout was released in 2009; she was accompanied by her husband Gérard Jouannest on piano and Jean-Louis Matinier on the accordion. To commemorate and promote the release, the trio gave four concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Given her prolific catalog on various labels, numerous compilations appeared over the next several years, including the double-length Si Tu T'imagines: Le Siècle D'or from Harmonia Mundi and Chante...Gainsbourg et Les Autres! from Go Hit. She paid tribute to Jacques Brel with Gréco Chante Brel in 2014 and was the subject of a 13-disc box entitled L'essentielle the following year. In 2016, during her sold-out Thank You tour across Europe, she had a stroke and had to cancel her remaining dates in order to recover. In 2018, at the age of 91, she began recording again, but none of the material was released. Juliette Gréco died on September 23, 2020 at her home near Saint-Tropez; she was 93 years old.
© Caspar Salmon /TiVo
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Diskografie
405 Album, -en • Geordnet nach Bestseller
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Live à l' A.B.C. (Live, Mono Version)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1962
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Bonjour tristesse
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Musictales am 17.03.2017
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Juliette Greco raconte… George Sand & Chopin
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei ARION am 15.06.2010
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Juliette Gréco chante Serge Gainsbourg (Mono Version)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1959
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Les plus belles Chansons, Vol. 6
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Documents 2 am 13.12.2014
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Accordéon
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Top Tracks am 30.10.2013
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
The Very Best Of
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Master Classics Records am 01.12.2010
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Je hais les dimanches (Collection "Légende de la chanson française")
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Marianne Melodie am 01.01.2008
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Aimez Vous Les Uns Les Autres Ou Bien Disparaissez
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Universal Music Division Decca Records France am 04.11.2003
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Les Feuilles Mortes (Remastered)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Old Europe am 09.09.2020
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The Voice Of Juliette Gréco, Vol. 2
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Lumi Entertainment am 01.10.2012
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INTEGRAL JULIETTE GRECO 1950 - 1956
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Diggers Factory am 23.02.2024
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Live at Club Domino (Live)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Avro am 16.01.2013
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French Dreams (Music City Entertainment Collection)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Music City Entertainment am 05.07.2018
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
La muse de Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei 1Dzikconnection am 22.06.2004
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Juliette Gréco : Si tu t'imagines
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Le Chant du Monde am 12.02.2009
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Utile
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Universal Music Division Decca Records France am 01.01.2007
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100% Juliette Gréco, Vol. 1
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Top Tracks am 30.10.2013
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Accordéon
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Mocking Bird am 13.04.2015
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
La chanson de Margaret
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei Diversity Collection am 01.05.2015
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Les feuilles mortes (Remastered)
Französischer Chanson - Erschienen bei New World am 20.06.2022
Verfügbar in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo