Alain Chamfort, a life of light music

Interview

Paris 

21/02/2007 - 

Alain Chamfort had some huge hits back in the days when people bought singles, with tracks like Manureva and Bambou. He was part of the second generation of French rock, along with Jacques Dutronc and Michel Polnareff, was part of Claude François’ record company, and won the heart of many a teenybopper with L’Amour en France. A lot of his songs fed off lyrics penned by Gainsbourg before he struck out on his own. By the start of the 21st century, Chamfort had come to symbolise the unease that had set in between artists and record labels, notably in his clip for Yeux de Laure, in which he plays an out-of-work singer. This three-box set covers the whole of his career, with all the essential tracks fitting onto an impressive 20 CDs (including B sides, unpublished and rarely heard material, duos and concerts). Here we look back on some of the marking moments of an unusual career with a singer who has never been duped by his success, or by the lack of it.

RFI Musique:  The first group you recorded with, the Mods, came along a few years after rock started in France, but they always seemed to be imitating English and American bands.
Alain Chamfort: It was quite odd music, it’s true, because it was so influenced by what we were listening to, even though we weren’t part of that culture. We had a different past from the Anglo-Saxons, for whom this music was simply a continuation of their culture. When I was a child, I used to listen to Mouloudji or Edith Piaf on the radio, all the old melodies, and music that was stamped much more by our culture than the Anglo Saxon wave that arrived in the sixties. We were trying to get closer to a music aimed at our generation, but which we hadn’t really got control of yet. Of course, we were still distanced from it, and what we were doing was a bit half-baked and didn’t really fool anyone. But up until then there had only been Elvis Presley imitators, like Eddy Mitchell.

From being a musician and singer in a group, how did you end up centre stage?
It was a gradual transition. I have always had time to adapt to each new situation because it’s never been a shock. The first time that I found myself taking on the role of singer was with Claude François. I was writing songs for him when he asked me to make what turned out to be my first records using the name Chamfort. Very soon after that, because the songs were played a bit on the radio, he included me — totally on the spur of the moment — in the first part of one of his concerts. One morning, I turned up for work as usual in his little mansion to do some songs, and that very evening I found myself faced with three or four thousand people waiting for Claude François. That was a bit brutal.

At the time of Manureva and the album Poses, your voice was particularly high pitched and elated.
Singers like the Beach Boys, Patrick Juvet and Michel Polnareff have sung like that too. I wasn’t quite out of Claude François’ clutches at the time. He was full of energy; he’d had a drummer’s training. Both on stage and in the studio, there was something very wilful about him, and he had a very rhythmic way of singing, and that had a big effect on me. Because I didn’t have much power, I got the conviction across by articulating and sticking to the tempo, probably too much so. The way I sang suffered as a result because I was leaning only on the music and sound effects, using my voice like a sound or an instrument more than a medium of the senses. Little by little, things changed, and I transferred my own interests and expectations into the singing.

In the eighties you were behind a successful duo, A caus’ des garcons. How did that come about?
It was one of those things that could only happen in the eighties. The record labels provided the means, there was a market for singles like that, so that even people who weren’t set to make a great career out of it could experience the recording studio. There were two girls I knew from elsewhere who wanted to be in the spotlight and do a single. I wasn’t too keen to start with but it turned out to be a nice experience because it was a hit and it didn’t generate any frustration. The two girls were in the fashion world and when they found themselves doing concerts on the country FM circuit and sleeping in Formule 1s (Ed.: a cheap hotel chain), they found out what a singer’s life was like and dropped it.

After a career of nearly forty years, do you have any advice for young artists about what to avoid doing in the business?µ
I know what I didn’t do, but I don’t know if it would work for others. I can see that people with a certain aggression often end up getting noticed. I never really worked on getting myself noticed: I would say that I simply offered my services. By chance, certain people were attracted to what I offered. But, each time that I have tried to get particular choices noticed – apart from artistic choices – it has never worked. Things have only worked when I haven’t fought to get them.

Alain Chamfort L’Intégrale, 3 boxes of 4 CDs (XIII Bis Records)
Alain Chamfort L’Intégrale, 1 box of 22 CDs and 2 DVDs, due out on 26 February (XIII Bis Records)

Bertrand  Dicale

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper