Last night, I had the pleasure of spending some time with my favourite country-noir angel Marianne Dissard. She played the Paris Appelle festival in The Hague, her first concert in Holland (if I'm not mistaken), and also the first time we met. Four years after I put a song of hers on my first French compilation, and experiencing the advantages of social media (twitter, Myspace). But nothing beats a real kiss from Marianne. She played with a new band, last night was the first show of the tour. Bemused, me and the mrs saw Marianne explaining to guitarplayer Brian Lopez how to pronounce several French words from her songs (Brian also sings harmony) at dinner. I for one would be terribly nervous when I had to explain my songs to my band an hour before showtime (of course Brian, Geoff, Olivier and Sergio heard and played her songs before), but Marianne was carefree. She told me the story about how she came to Liverpool for three shows, and on the way to the venue the guy from the label told her that the duo she was supposed to play with, well, they broke up. So she had to do all shows with just an accoreon player. 'And it went great!', Marianne said.
Just as her show in The Hague was great. If you know her album L'Entredeux (if you don't, get it now! Heck, it's one of the greatest French albums of the decade!), you might expect a quiet, shy girl. None of that! Mrs Guuzbourg compared her to Edith Piaf, and there's some truth in that. Marianne's very expressive, communicative and (again, mrs Guuzbourg talking here) 'you get the feeling she has an urge to perform.'
So there. Find all dates for Marianne's European tour here. Below is a live track (with her former band) plus tracks by other projecst of most of her bandmembers.
Marianne Dissard - Les Draps Sourds (live in Tucson AZ)
Sergio Mendoza y la Orkesta - Las Calles de Tuscon (More on Sergio here)
B.Lopez - The Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen cover) (More on B.Lopez here)
Mostly Bears - Melancholyism (More on MB here)>
Mrs. Guuzbourg is right! Marianne is very sweet, very open and very communicative. While Guuzbourg was Dj'íng, Marianne was in the foyer selling her records (even on cassette!) Go see her, go buy her!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenHow many performers/songwriters can make the leap from dusty Americana to chansons? She's versatile, she's wonderful live (I saw her recently in a small club; she disappeared and then reappeared a while later in this lovely black outfit) - she takes performance seriously. My only complaint is that she does not record more often.
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