"Look at me well. I would like to move. I am very happy. I would like to scream […] I want someone to share my joy. Head in the smoke for the night with me. This chorus is played by Johnny Hallyday on the very rock chords of a bass, drums and guitar. The song is called "La Nuit avec moi" and extracts have just been released in preview on RTL this Friday, May 22.
The title had never been released to the public in any version whatsoever. This first unpublished piece since the singer's death in 2017 is now part - in its entirety - of a box entitled "Johnny 69", which will be marketed from May 29.
🔺🎶 EXCLUDED RTL // A new song from #JohnnyHallyday resurfaces. @StevenBellery tells us the story and joined Xavier Perrot, artistic manager of the Hallyday catalog at @UMusicFrance #RTLMatin @LVT_RTL pic.twitter.com/GTSPLb95qR
- RTL France (@RTLFrance) May 22, 2020These are 4 CDs containing the album “Rivière… Ouvert ton lit”, rare versions and two concerts dating from 1969, one at the Palais des Sports in Paris on April 26, the other on August 9 in Port Barcarès (Pyrénées-Orientales). It was while working on this project that the Universal label teams unearthed "La Nuit avec moi".
Archives in a secret place
"We keep all of its archives in a warehouse located in the Paris region, the exact location of which is kept secret," says Xavier Perrot, artistic manager of the Hallyday catalog within the record company. Even I don't know where the site is… ”When we were working on“ Johnny 69 ”, Xavier Perrot asked the warehouse documentation service to study all the tapes recorded at the time. It is by comparing what he "knew" and what the site possessed that Johnny's specialist discovered this new engraved on a multitrack tape. "She was sleeping in the warehouse," he says.
Thanks to other archives, Universal was able to retrace the history of this song, which was played during the preparation of the album "Rivière… Ouvert ton lit" and recorded in December 1968 at the Olympic Sound Studio in London. "We digitized the tape and we mixed it," explains Xavier Perrot. We wanted the rawest sound possible, but, to find a more rock tone, we removed a little from the reverb ' (Editor's note: echoes) that the English used a lot ”. The “Johnny 69” box set was originally due to be released in 2019 for the fiftieth anniversary of this vintage, but the phenomenal success of the “Johnny symphonique” (more than 450,000 physical and digital copies) then convinced Universal to postpone its publication.
We can now wonder if other unpublished works by Johnny will be discovered in the coming years ... "Yes, that's for sure", Xavier Perrot responds without hesitation.
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VIDEO. Johnny Hallyday: behind the scenes of the recording of his posthumous album
"Johnny 69", Super Deluxe box set, 4 CDs and a 28-page booklet, Universal, around 29 euros.
