Smj studio jacques brel biography

In August, Brel returned to Paris and moved into a small hotel. In September and October, Brel recorded 12 of the 17 new songs he had written in the Marquesas. The new album was released on 17 November and was received as an historic national event in France. At Brel's request, Barclay did not run a huge promotional campaign for the album, and still, by word of mouth alone, over a million fans placed advance orders.

The day the album was released, Jacques and Maddly returned to their home in the Marquesas Islands. In July, after his health began to fail, Brel was flown back to France and rushed to a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine , where doctors discovered a cancerous tumour. He remained in the hospital for six weeks and then spent the rest of the summer in Southern France.

On 7 October, he was rushed to hospital Avicenne in Bobigny near Paris. He died of a pulmonary embolism at 4. On 12 October, his body was flown back to the Marquesas Islands, where he was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Atuona on the southern side of Hiva-Oa, French Polynesia —a few yards away from the grave of artist Paul Gauguin. In the Francophone world, Brel left an enduring influence on music and culture.

Further afield his influence has been somewhat tempered by differences in language, though he has influenced many artists globally. International artists listed alphabetically below by last name who have covered his songs include:. The songs of Jacques Brel have been translated into at least 95 languages. Brel occasionally included parts of his songs in Dutch , one of the three official languages of Belgium, as in " Marieke ".

So far unreleased is the song "Als men niets dan liefde heeft" "Quand on n'a que l'amour". English versions of Jacques Brel songs have been recorded by a wide variety of artists. Rod McKuen was one of the first American artists to discover and translate Brel's songs. Canadian Terry Jacks ' version of " Seasons in the Sun " based on Brel's " Le Moribond " became a global pop hit in , topping the charts internationally.

McKuen and Brel formed a close friendship. McKuen later wrote, "When news of Jacques' death came, I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week. During the s, other English translations emerged on the folk music scene, including "The Dove" "La colombe" , an anti-war lament recorded both by Joan Baez and Judy Collins. This was the only translation of a Brel song written by Alasdair Clayre , an Oxford-educated Englishman who had a brief career as a singer-songwriter before becoming an author, academic, and sometime producer of BBC documentaries.

Consisting of 25 songs, the revue was performed by four vocalists, two males and two females. Jacques Brel contributed most of the music and French lyrics. The production enjoyed considerable international success, and has since played throughout the world in various productions. Scott Walker's first three solo albums, titled Scott , Scott 2 , and Scott 3 , released between and , each contains three of the Blau—Shuman translations.

The songs on the first of these, and Walker's single release of "Jackie", were the earliest releases of the Blau-Shuman translations. Several of the original songs on these albums, and on the later Scott 4 , can be seen as heavily influenced by Brel. Walker also performed five Brel songs on his television series. This version was released as the B-side to "Sorrow" in , and was released as a bonus track on the reissue of Pin Ups.

Dave Van Ronk also recorded this song, earlier, on Van Ronk. Bowie also sang "My Death" during his Ziggy Stardust period. This popular concert piece was never recorded in the studio. A similar version of this song was also recorded by Show of Hands. Alex Harvey recorded "Next" Au suivant. In Momus and more recently Barb Jungr recorded new English translations of "Ne me quitte pas" which are much nearer to the original.

Jungr used a translation titled "Don't leave me now" by Des de Moor. Momus translated and recorded "Don't Leave Me" because he was dissatisfied with the dominant English translations to date. To me the strength of Brel is that he doesn't come from the American tradition of songwriting, it's a strongly European thing. In , Marc Almond , who had performed Brel songs on his early albums with Marc and the Mambas , released his successful Jacques , an album composed solely of Jacques Brel songs.

In he released " Jacky ", which became a successful hit single. During his concerts, Almond nearly always plays at least one Brel song. Johnston exclusive rights to translate Brel's work into English. Johnston recorded the album I'm Here! Belgian-German singer Dieter Kaiser has translated 30 of Brel's songs and has gathered them in a booklet with over other French chansons in German.

Klaus Hoffmann is another important German interpreter of Brel's songs, as is the Austrian actor Michael Heltau , who was asked by Brel himself to record his songs, using the translation of Werner Schneyder. Other language versions of Jacques Brel songs have been recorded by a wide variety of artists throughout the world. The most frequently recorded song in other languages is " Ne me quitte pas " Don't leave me , with at least different recorded versions in 52 different languages.

Marlene Dietrich recorded the German version "Bitte geh' nicht fort" in At least 26 songs by Brel were translated to Hebrew according to the Shironet website , and many of these translated versions were recorded by prominent singers, among them the famous Yossi Banai. Paris-based Colombian salsa singer Yuri Buenaventura performed the Spanish version, "No me dejes mas".

Brel's recordings have been released in many different permutations, in different countries and in different formats, and are sometimes known by different titles. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item.

Belgian singer — Schaerbeek , Brussels , Belgium. Bobigny , France. Chanson French pop music. Philips Barclay Universal. Musical artist. Early life [ edit ]. Music career [ edit ]. Film career [ edit ]. Final years and death [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ]. Translations [ edit ]. Dutch [ edit ]. English [ edit ]. We need you! Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!

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Smj studio jacques brel biography

Notify me of new comments via email. That's why he instructed his manager to never turn down any contracts it took him six years to fulfill them all after he decided to leave the stage. This is why he pursued acting in movies and performed on stage. He had a thirst for life, which Edith Piaf understood best: "He pushes himself to the limit because his songs express what he lives for, and every line hits you in the face so hard that it takes a long time to recover.

He was interested in "conquering the elements. And he fought with sound in the same way: living in the studio, perfecting every note and every line with his musicians until all the elements fell into their only possible places. It took only two takes to record an entire album after that. By that time, existentialists and beatniks had already faded into history, and the rebellious rockers were yet to emerge.

Society needed a symbolic figure, and Jacques Brel became that figure for Europe, elusive and indefinable to this day. He was an artist. A poet who sang for the people. He combined natural charm with a touch of mystery, a tragic view of the world that resonates with us, and a truly romantic otherworldliness. It seems that it didn't exist at all.

Because the most effective means of undermining any established order is not fighting for a righteous cause or the mindless rebellion of the permissive , but rather mockery and ridicule. People loved him. It was for them that he crafted chains of poetic lyrics made of simple and seemingly banal words. The audience understood that only someone whose heart was bursting with love could sing about "the veils of light" or "flaming volcanoes" in such different ways.

And his sound was as passionate as what was hidden between the lines. Sometimes Brel the poet seems too rational - it seems impossible to achieve such natural breath of passion without careful calculation of internal harmonies and rhymes. He was not a stellar student, but he took advantage of that time to do theater. As a young Belgian Catholic, he spent his spare time with a mob of scouts who nicknamed him "Phoque hilarant" hilarious seal.

He organized concerts and theatrical performances, which led him to discover his taste for singing in public. His future wife, Miche, was also a member of this group. They were married on 1 June and had three children: Chantal , France , and Isabelle In Brel seriously considered leaving the family cardboard business. Passionate about music, he frequented such local Brussels clubs as Le Grenier de la Rose Noire The attic of the black rose.

Brel's first record was a 78 rpm with two tracks, "La foire" and "Il y a. He encouraged Brel to start a career in Paris and offered him a recording contract with Philips. Brel became one of the noted singers at the "music haunts" of the Left Bank. Starting in he toured Europe and North Africa; in he starred at the Bobino theater in Paris.

In Brel left the stage. In he set sail aboard his sailboat L'Askoy and settled down two years later on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. He recorded his final record in and died the following year, on 9 October, of lung cancer. Jacques Brel's lifework is both one of the best representations of French songwriting—along with that of Georges Braessens — or Jean Ferrat b.

His songs express the melancholy or enraged voice of the unloved: they are the echoes of a universe devoid of pleasure or grandeur, transcended by the lyricism of the artist. His accompaniment was often brilliant, and he mastered not only the language of tenderness "Madeleine" but also the opposite "Les flamingants".