Vive Le Rock ‘n’ Roll (RPM Retro 965) – Cherry Red
Think of French music, and you are probably put into mind of the ‘Chanson’ tradition, and such luminaries as Maurice Chevalier, Juliette Greco and Belgian born Jacques Brel. With giants like these and a strong patriotic pride in the tradition of tackling the whole life experience in a well-crafted song, it’s easy to forget that France was also bitten by the Rock ‘n’ Roll bug that arrived on British shores from its home in the USA in the mid-1950’s. Often unfairly looked upon as poor cousin to Brit Rock ‘n’ Roll of the same period, there are some delights worth investigating, as RPM’s Retro label CD attests.
Les Chats Sauvages open with a close relative of ‘Let’s Go to the Hop’, the pepped-up ‘Twist a Saint Tropez’, which benefits from a Gene Vincent style vocal. Their ‘Le Jour ‘J’ later on in the disc is a lively high-fret riffer, definitely one of the better bands here.
Les Chaussettes Noires’ ‘Si Suelement’ is an early let-down, the voice a little too restrained in an energetic ‘Midnight Special’ style riff. The chorus has an incongruous ‘Speedy Gonzalez’ feel to it, but they partly redeem themselves in their later cover of ‘Be Bop a Lula’, with the backing so good, it rather shows up the vocals.
Les Daltons avec Long Chris’ twangy, surfin’ style ‘Hello Josephine’ has an exciting feel to it, and the band also turn up, sans Long Chris with ‘Dalton City’, a Shadows style workout of the Western cowboy stylings which were evidently just as popular on the Continent as they were UK and Stateside in this period.
Of huge interest is the inclusion of legendary British rocker and assumed model for Ziggy Stardust, Vince Taylor, backed by ‘ses Play-Boys’ (their hyphen and genitive case, not mine), whose ‘Baby Let’s Play House’, with its distant, conspiratorial backing and suggestion of sexual mischief in the voice as well as the lyric, is a standout here. Their take on Chuck Berry’s classic ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ has some fine riffing, and an ironic Cliff Richard style vocal that raises it high above the usual routine, obligatory cover of this standard, which bands are apt to turn out.
Jackie Seven’s ‘Le Rythme Du Rock’s descending pattern and frantic voice, hiccupping her way through a shopping list, has plenty to get up for, unfortunately her only contribution to this compilation.
Les Pingouins’ ‘Oh, Les Filles’ begins a little half-heartedly, but soon builds into a good ‘No Particular Place To Go’ style steady rocker, staccato, and gets quite shouty in the vocal.
The ‘Gong-Gong (I’m Blues)’ of Danyel Gerard accompagne par les Danger’s is either too silly to enjoy or loses something in translation, or both, and we are spared any further foolishness from this ensemble.
We’re back on form with Gabriel Dalar’s ‘39deg De Fievre’, with its subtle, snappy backing and interjecting drum roll, an alt version of evergreen, svelte and much covered standard ‘Fever’.
Henry Cording and his Original Rock and Roll Boys treat us to a Lord Rockingham’s XI-style, crazy roll about the carpet, with horns blaring wildly in ‘Rock and Roll Mops’. What it lacks in R ‘n’ R authenticity, it more than makes up for in performance. If only the same could be said of Charles Verstraete et son ensemble Musette’s ‘Rock Rock’, a rather sedate accordion-led near-relative of ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’.
The clear clarinet stylings on ‘Rock a Billy’, by Les 6 Trognes et leur ensemble Bastringue sit surprisingly well with its strong backing and vocal.
Another displaced Brit, Gillian Hills, will probably be the most familiar name to most of us here, and her ‘En Dansant Le Twist’ is a welcome, innocent teen song with a great, yearning vocal that reaches Helen Shapiro sultriness in the low notes and France Gall clarity in the high ones.
The girls are putting up a brave fight on this disc, even if the material offered is somewhat predictably lightweight, and Nicole Paquin’s ‘Mon Mari C’Est Frankenstein’ is good, silly fun with a bright vocal in a typical Twist rhythm, ‘Roadrunner’ style.
No problem with the material in Gelou’s ‘Ils Croient A Leur Danse’ with its urgent beat, great slide guitar exclamations building well, helped along by applause in the sound effects, nor in Mike and the Bonds’ ‘Rebuh’, recorded in 1961, but inexplicably not released until 1996, with its frantic drums and fist shredding guitar, hurtling along like a runaway lorry.
El Toro et les Cyclones’ ‘Oncle John’ suffers from its own restraint in covering ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’. Long thought impossible, I’d contend that it’s at least not possible to match up to the Little Richard original, no matter who’s threatening it.
This leaves us with two tracks that fully live up to the ‘Unruly World of French Rock ‘n’ Roll’ subtitle of this compilation. French R ‘n’ R legend Johnny Hallyday’s 1958 charmingly distorted home recordings of ‘Je Me Sens Seul’, a mean, downright evil re-write of ‘Heartbreak Hotel, and ‘Tutti Frutti’ a creditable cover of Little Richard’s most ludicrously suggestive song have an authenticity to them that outclass many of his more polished recordings.
My own schoolboy French can cope with most of what I hear here, so I’m sure you won’t really be put off by those songs delivered in the mother tongue of France. Allez maintenant!
