Petula

In 1998, Epsom-born Petula Clark was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, "for bringing so much joy over the years." The bringing of joy started very early, in her teens little Petula entertained the British WWII-soldiers both in concert and on the radio. She recorded childish songs like Where Did My Snowman Go, plus more grown-up songs like Romeo. In 1957 she did a concert for a very enthusiastic crowd in the Paris Olympia, which founded a love for France and French. She was persuaded by later husband Claude Wolff to record in France where, unhappy with her British teen-star status, she reinvented herself as a chanteuse. She had many Fench hits - the French obviously forgave her the occassional English -r and -ay (instead of -é) when she sang. She covered song by The Kinks (Well Respected Man) and sang songs written by Serge Gainsbourg. She did not give up singing in English, as her hit Downtown proves. She was a superstar in Vegas for a while, and nowadays still tours around the world.
Presented here are the French version of Cilla Black's megahit Anyone Who Had a Heart (listen to that organ grind!), and the Serge-song La Gadoue.

Petula Clark - Ceux qui ont un coeur

Petula Clark - La gadoue

Devery

La Laque is a six-piece rockband (Devery is the shy sounding singer) from NYC, who play Filles Sourires-appreciated music but with a rougher edge. To quote a pressreview: "Fronted by a sexy siren teleported straight from a Godard casting call, La Laque explodes in a beautiful riot of beats and shrieks, leaving only a cloud of thick Gauloises smoke in its wake. It sounds like it wouldn't work. But, like so many things French, somehow it inexplicably does. Call it that certain je ne sais quoi." Sounds interesting, eh? Don't worry about the shrieking - that's not done by Devery, but by the guitars, and it's more psychedelic (think the loud guitars on Serge's Melody Nelson-album) then metal. La Laque happens to do a Gainsbourg-tribute, courtesy of the blogs Le One Night Stand and Melody Nelson, in the Big Apple when I'm over there too! I'm definitely trying to go. Odd: Le One Night Stand's myspace-site doesn't seem to work.
More music by La Laque on their myspace-site. Buy vinyl here.

This week I'm going to post more Filles Sourires from non-French speaking countries like America, f.i. Holland, Brazil and Spain. Tips are welcome!

La Laque - La Sirene Dort

La Laque - Secret

(merci à Hello Gina for introducing me to La Laque)

Keren Ann

If you go here you can download a really good live-set by Keren Ann (from 2003), with a Joni Mitchell-cover.
And from her session at radiostation KCRW, here a fine rendition (with feedback) of Are You Lonesome Tonight.

Keren Ann - Are You Lonesome Tonight

Marie Cherrier

Frankie suggested I should listen to Marie Cherrier, and I did. She's from Blois, born in 1984 and this fansite states she has a voix cristalline d'une grande justesse et pleine de chaleur. Which is true. She had pianolessons as a young girl, but found it too 'mathematique', and did not touch the 88 keys until highschool. A crush on a guitarplayer from Tahiti made her want to play the guitar, which her dad (amateur musician) gladly encouraged. She says she's very inspired by Renaud, Brassens and Gainsbourg, and, unlike a lot of other filles sourires, writes music and lyrics herself. Album Ni Vue Ni Connue (2005) is a short, but very pretty affair, with gentle songs that are firmly rooted in the chanson-tradition. It's stories she tells, about a girl, her amourettes and childhood memories. Thanks Frankie!

Marie Cherrier - Ni Vue Ni Connue
Hear Here

Marie Cherrier - Joyeux Noël
Hear Here

Even More Je t'aimes

I just can't help myself! So here's twelve more (which makes a grand total of 53). NOTE: ALL JE T'AIME-FILES ARE DOWN!

Comic
If you don't know what happy hardcore is, think of The Smurfs, doing a lalala-version of Je t'aime. Exactly that was put to wax by Mig 29. Now, imagine a very hot 'n bothered girl in a recording studio, milking a goat. 'Cause that is what Psychic TV's version sound to me. Les Femmes Erotiques' version (Italo-house style) is here because it did not fit in the other categories.

Instrumental
Okay, so there's some singing, but most of the time is just muzak by Nini Rosso, Christopher John and Raymond Lefevre. Los Bichos grunt, cough, bark, and rock on!

Foreign
I'm not sure if the band is called Pânico, but they are from Brazil, and their comic version namechecks François Mitterand, in a Frazilian (or Brench?) style.

Family
Malcolm McLaren covered Je t'aime for his 1995 Paris-album, and added some Arabic instruments. Vertigo added a lot of encouragements ('Come on, come on!'). Nayanka Bell & Koffi Olomide made it reggae, while Donna Summer and superproducer Giorgio Moroder stretched in 1977 it to a full 15 minutes. But if you want to hear Donna really pant, sigh and grind a lot, you better check Love To Love You Baby, the 17-minute version, ofcourse.

Thanks again Maks, Bruno and Omar M-C.

Mary L.

A visitor of this blog emailed me that he refers to les filles sourires as 'Cooing Frenchies', which is a very apt description as well. And very much in place when it comes to Mary L. I have no clue what the L. stands for, the biography doesn't tell - it does state that her dad was in a mythical seventies rockband called Zoo (couldn't find anything on them), and that young pianoplaying Mary was sort of a child prodigy: at eight, she performed at the Bataclan, at ten, she wrote her first compositions. She worked with Veronique Sanson, Cheb Mami and was part of Celtic group Stone Age. With a band called Stereodrome she made her first solo album, Interview, a jazzy, pianodriven and laidback affair. Second album Bossanova (2005), as the title already promises, is a take on breezy bossanova. Working with musicians who also worked with Chico Buarque, Tania Maria and Bebel Gilberto, she recorded 12 sunny songs. One of them is a duet with Helena Noguerra - very much in place, because Bossanova reminds me a lot of Helena's Azul-cd. If you go to Mary L.'s website, you can watch a video of them singing together in the studio.

Mary L. and Helena Noguerra - L'Amour C'est Gratuit
Hear Here.

Mary L. - Les Amants
Hear Here.

Lio

It took five years, encouragements from sister Helena, threats of kidnapping, a short disappearance and a small studio somewhere in a Swedish forest, but finally, it's here: Dites Au Prince Charmant, the marvellous comeback of Wanda Ribeiro de Vasconcelos, better known as Lio. 43 years old right now, but she still looks ravishing. No more electropop, but clever, beautifully arranged acoustic songs with lyrics about loneliness, disillusionment and dreams that did not came true. In this interview, Lio tells about some Iranian former acquintance, who threatened to take her kids to Iran. "I did not want to re-enact the movie Not Without My Daughter", she says about the time she hid in the city of Montpellier.
The album was produced, and almost completely written by Doriand and Bertrand Burgalat-collaborator Peter von Poehl. She passed around some ideas before with Doriand, but when he wrote the song L'Âge des Saisons for here, the puzzlepieces fell into place. There's one cover, Attend ou va-t'en, written by Serge and made famous by France Gall in 1964. The new, grown-up Lio has been compared to Françoise Hardy and Keren Ann, and Dites Au Prince Charmant album certainly can match the best work of these singers. But still, she has to work in a pub do yoghurt-commercials to make ends meet: "J'avais besoin d'argent, donc j'ai accepté l'autre pub."

Lio - Vieil Ami
Hear Here

Lio - L'Âge des Saisons
Hear Here

Lio - Attend ou va-t'en
Hear Here

France Gall - Attend ou va-t'en
Hear Here