Vive Le Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll (RPM Retro 965) – Cherry Red<\/b><\/p>\n
Think of French music, and you are probably put into mind of the \u2018Chanson\u2019 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\u2019s easy to forget that France was also bitten by the Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll bug that arrived on British shores from its home in the USA in the mid-1950\u2019s. Often unfairly looked upon as poor cousin to Brit Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll of the same period, there are some delights worth investigating, as RPM\u2019s Retro label CD attests.<\/p>\n
Les Chats Sauvages open with a close relative of \u2018Let\u2019s Go to the Hop\u2019, the pepped-up \u2018Twist a Saint Tropez\u2019, which benefits from a Gene Vincent style vocal. Their \u2018Le Jour \u2018J\u2019 later on in the disc is a lively high-fret riffer, definitely one of the better bands here.<\/p>\n
Les Chaussettes Noires\u2019 \u2018Si Suelement\u2019 is an early let-down, the voice a little too restrained in an energetic \u2018Midnight Special\u2019 style riff. The chorus has an incongruous \u2018Speedy Gonzalez\u2019 feel to it, but they partly redeem themselves in their later cover of \u2018Be Bop a Lula\u2019, with the backing so good, it rather shows up the vocals.<\/p>\n
Les Daltons avec Long Chris\u2019\u00a0 twangy, surfin\u2019 style \u2018Hello Josephine\u2019 has an exciting feel to it, and the band also turn up, sans Long Chris with \u2018Dalton City\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n
Of huge interest is the inclusion of legendary British rocker and assumed model for Ziggy Stardust, Vince Taylor, backed by \u2018ses Play-Boys\u2019 (their hyphen and genitive case, not mine), whose \u2018Baby Let\u2019s Play House\u2019, 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\u2019s classic \u2018Sweet Little Sixteen\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
Jackie Seven\u2019s \u2018Le Rythme Du Rock\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Les Pingouins\u2019 \u2018Oh, Les Filles\u2019 begins a little half-heartedly, but soon builds into a good \u2018No Particular Place To Go\u2019 style steady rocker, staccato, and gets quite shouty in the vocal.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Gong-Gong (I\u2019m Blues)\u2019 of Danyel Gerard accompagne par les Danger\u2019s is either too silly to enjoy or loses something in translation, or both, and we are spared any further foolishness from this ensemble.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re back on form with Gabriel Dalar\u2019s \u201839deg De Fievre\u2019, with its subtle, snappy backing and interjecting drum roll, an alt version of evergreen, svelte and much covered standard \u2018Fever\u2019.<\/p>\n
Henry Cording and his Original Rock and Roll Boys treat us to a Lord Rockingham\u2019s XI-style, crazy roll about the carpet, with horns blaring wildly in \u2018Rock and Roll Mops\u2019. What it lacks in R \u2018n\u2019 R authenticity, it more than makes up for in performance. If only the same could be said of Charles Verstraete et son ensemble Musette\u2019s \u2018Rock Rock\u2019, a rather sedate accordion-led near-relative of \u2018Shake Rattle and Roll\u2019.<\/p>\n
The clear clarinet stylings on \u2018Rock a Billy\u2019, by Les 6 Trognes et leur ensemble Bastringue sit surprisingly well with its strong backing and vocal.<\/p>\n
Another displaced Brit, Gillian Hills, will probably be the most familiar name to most of us here, and her \u2018En Dansant Le Twist\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
The girls are putting up a brave fight on this disc, even if the material offered is somewhat predictably lightweight, and Nicole Paquin\u2019s \u2018Mon Mari C\u2019Est Frankenstein\u2019 is good, silly fun with a bright vocal in a typical Twist rhythm, \u2018Roadrunner\u2019 style.<\/p>\n
No problem with the material in Gelou\u2019s \u2018Ils Croient A Leur Danse\u2019 with its urgent beat, great slide guitar exclamations building well, helped along by applause in the sound effects, nor in Mike and the Bonds\u2019 \u2018Rebuh\u2019, recorded in 1961, but inexplicably not released until 1996, with its frantic drums and fist shredding guitar, hurtling along like a runaway lorry.<\/p>\n
El Toro et les Cyclones\u2019 \u2018Oncle John\u2019 suffers from its own restraint in covering \u2018Good Golly Miss Molly\u2019. Long thought impossible, I\u2019d contend that it\u2019s at least not possible to match up to the Little Richard original, no matter who\u2019s threatening it.<\/p>\n
This leaves us with two tracks that fully live up to the \u2018Unruly World of French Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u2019 subtitle of this compilation. French R \u2018n\u2019 R legend Johnny Hallyday\u2019s 1958 charmingly distorted home recordings of \u2018Je Me Sens Seul\u2019, a mean, downright evil re-write of \u2018Heartbreak Hotel, and \u2018Tutti Frutti\u2019 a creditable cover of Little Richard\u2019s most ludicrously suggestive song have an authenticity to them that outclass many of his more polished recordings.<\/p>\n
My own schoolboy French can cope with most of what I hear here, so I\u2019m sure you won\u2019t really be put off by those songs delivered in the mother tongue of France. Allez maintenant!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My schoolboy French can cope with most of what I hear here, so I\u2019m sure you won\u2019t be put off by those songs delivered in the mother tongue of France. Allez maintenant!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,71,74],"tags":[1089,305,1088],"series":[],"class_list":["post-6845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-plugs","category-music","category-reviews","tag-french-rock-n-roll","tag-scenester","tag-vive-le-rock-n-roll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6845"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6853,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845\/revisions\/6853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6845"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=6845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}