Text from the booklet :
Françoise Hardy was born on January 17th 1944 in Paris,
and grew up with her sister Michele and her mother in the 19th arrondissement.
She had a sheltered upbringing - because her mother worked, Françoise's
overbearing grandmother looked after her, scolding her for being "too tall
and too thin". At the religious school she attended Françoise was
tormented for her peculiar family life. Not surprisingly, she developed an
acute lack of confidence which thirty-odd years of fame and wealth have
barely altered.
"To my eyes she has always symbolised the modern woman. I
think she came to see me because my avant-garde style corresponds to her way of
thinking." Andre Courreges
"Listening to other people's music was the only
thing that interested me in my life, that really moved me. I'd love to have
been a radio programmer, but I'd got myself a guitar and taught myself three
chords, so I started to write songs." Extremely shy and naturally
pessimistic, songwriting was more of a therapy for Françoise than a career option.
She had been inspired by a radio programme launched in 1959 called Salut Les
Copains which broadcast British and American rock - especially, she dug
the Everly Brothers and Cliff Richard. Soon she was playing in small Paris
clubs and hanging out at the Moka club with other aspiring songwriters. In 1961
she had an audition with Vogue Records, a label she picked for an intriguing
reason: "I told myself it wouldn't be so hard to please the people at
Vogue because I considered the recordings of Johnny Hallyday (their biggest
name) to be inferior to those I heard elsewhere." Artistic director
Jacques Wolfsohn was smitten with her nervous rendition of Je T'Aime Trop (a
French translation of Elvis' Gotta Know) and signed her in November '61.
Until the turn of the seventies, French singles were
always four track EPs, so when Wolfsohn handed Françoise a Petula Clark cast-off
called Oh Oh Cheri as her first single, she was allowed to record three
of her own songs to back it up. On April 25th 1962, after "three hours
with the worst four musicians in Paris" Françoise recorded Tous Les
Garcons Et Les Filles. By mid '63 it had sold over 2 million copies. In
eighteen months Françoise Hardy sold more records than Edith Piaf had in
eighteen years. Holidaying in Austria during the summer of '62, Françoise
came home to find she was a star. She is typically overmodest today: "If I
was able to realise my dream of singing it was due to the fact that there were
not many singers around. The record companies had seen the success of Richard
Anthony and Johnny Hallyday and realised there was an entire youth movement in
the making. They were on the lookout for any young singer, because there
weren't any."
It was a happy coincidence that Salut Les Copains
was launched as a monthly pop magazine within a couple of months of Françoise's
first record. It was heavily picture based, and Françoise became a regular
cover star. Follow-ups to Tous Les Garcons all scored well in the SLC Top
10, the only French chart at the time. The first three EPs featured charming
but rudimentary productions courtesy of Vogue in-house arranger Roger
Samyn. The more pop sensitive Marcel Hendrix took over the reins for
Françoise's mellow Eurovision entry L'Amour S'En Va in early '63, then
guiding her through twist-friendly "ye-ye" classics like Qui
Aime T'Il Vraiment and Va Pas Prendre Un Tambour. American exile
Mickey Baker (of Mickey And Sylvia, and 'Love Is Strange' fame) ably handled Pourtant
Tu M'aimes and C'est Le Passe, both girl group styled beat, but
Françoise had become obsessed with working in England. In 1964 producer Charles
Blackwell got the call and Françoise's best records of the sixties were the
result.
With the help of boyfriend photographer Jean Marie
Perier, Françoise had become the epitome of the modern woman, always dressed in
the latest fashions, independent and beautiful. Perier introduced her to Andre
Courreges who created simple but impeccable clothes for Françoise. With her
extraordinary figure, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne were only too
pleased to follow suit. Françoise was dubbed "the archetypal woman of the
year 2000." In spite of an in-built mistrust of foreign language
singers, Britain fell for Françoise Hardy. 'All Over The World' (Dans Le
Monde Entier), was a typically fragile Françoise love song which became a
UK Top 20 hit in mid '65 and a huge hit on the BBC's Family Favourites. Even
more remarkable were the sales of her French language recordings in Britain - a
revived Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles and the thunderous Blackwell-produced
Et Meme also made the charts while her EPs and albums, all with stunning
Jean Marie Perier artwork, sold extremely well. For Françoise it was a
revelation.
"The moment that I realised others might find me
attractive was when I worked in England; the English made me feel like this. In
France I developed alongside Sylvie (Vartan) who I always thought was much
prettier than me, and much better dressed. I began to believe that I too was
attractive when I read that I corresponded to Mick Jagger's feminine ideal...
and of course he totally matched my masculine ideal!
In England it was certainly my physique which pleased people..."
Now Françoise was an international star. Bob Dylan had dedicated a poem to her on
the sleeve of Another Side Of... Then there were the fashion shoots, and the
film appearances. Her first had been as Ophelia in Roger Vadim's 'Chateau En
Suede' - she was bored and always had her transistor radio on set - but
now she was offered roles by Jean Luc Godard (Masculin Feminin), Clive
Donner (What's New Pussycat) and John Frankenheimer (Grand Prix). In London she
hung out with The Beatles, David Bailey, and the Rolling Stones: "One
evening I ended up round at Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg's place, and I
knew nothing about drugs, dope and all that stuff! It took me a long time to
realise they were totally out of it. I never know how to take my leave of
people, so that evening went on forever. I found out afterwards that they were
wondering what I was waiting for, if I was interested in the drugs or if I
wanted to have an affair with them. Obviously it was neither of these! For me,
Brian Jones was in the Rolling Stones and I'd spent an evening with him and
that was just fine."
1966 was a hectic year - Wolfsohn and Perier won Françoise an American deal on
the back of Grand Prix's success, while she toured all over Europe plus Turkey,
Lebanon, Canada, Brazil and South Africa. Two of her most beautiful singles
were released - La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi and the heartstopping Je
Changerai D'avis. But by 1967 things were coming to a head. Françoise took
control of her finances and set up her own production company, named Asparagus
after one wag had called her "l'endive du twist". She became
disillusioned with Vogue and touring was getting her down. She took to reading
Proust, Celine, Ionesco and Celine, and became fascinated by astrology. Also
she began a relationship with singer Jacques Dutronc - a year later she
gave up touring completely to be with Jacques, declaring she was "bored
stiff" with everything she'd done thus far. The ye-ye years were over.
"When I started singing, at the age of 17, 18,
I had no idea of my potential, and I realised pretty quickly that I was very
limited in terms of my voice. And that was enough for the sixties, to sing Tous
Les Garcons Et Les Filles which is a totally linear song, the same note
from start to finish. But when you attempt something more ambitious on stage
it's a totaly different kettle of fish. I'm not really a natural at singing on
stage. On top of this I'm very emotional and could never control this emotion.
And I am sedentary to an unbelievable degree. I found myself set in motion at
the age of 18 and it was very difficult not to get caught up in it all. The
life of filming, travelling, continual departures, made me very, very unhappy.
No, I wasn’t made for that.
Starting Asparagus gave Françoise a new lease of life, and arguably her best records
came out of that late sixties, early seventies period, but that's another
story: these are the records that made "The Yeh Yeh Girl from Paris“ a
star. When she began, Françoise Hardy’s contemporaries were Helen Shapiro and
Branda Lee. Today, they seem positively antique. The Françoise Hardy of the mid
sixties still looks and sounds truly modern.
Bob Stanley
Many thanks to Lora Findlay
Quotes from Françoise Hardy: Superstar et Ermite
by Etienne Daho and Jerome Soligny
