How to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Georges Brassens? By interpreting it with love and humor, as Yolande Moreau and François Morel do in a delightful tribute album. Obviously, the actors did not immediately agree to rub shoulders with such a monument when the record company Universal approaches them for the centenary of his birth, on October 22, 1921 (the coming month also marks the 40th anniversary of his disappearance on October 29, 1981). François Morel first said
"no interest"
, as he told AFP, sitting alongside Yolande Moreau under a photo of Brassens holding cats, on the wall of the Parisian restaurant
Aux Sporteurs Reunis
. This troquet-institution, also called "
Chez Walczak
», Was frequented by the singer who even alludes to it in his song
Le bistrot
.
Read also For the singer's centenary, Brassensmania in Sète
It should be added that Brassens is a star that counts in the actor / columnist's galaxy.
"He has been with me for a very long time, there is perfection with just a double bass and two guitars, I'm not one of those people who find it boring, I love it, I find it incredibly rich"
.
He had the chance to see the artist on stage, “
this poet of the humble
” as he describes him, during his last stint at Bobino in the 1970s.
“I loved his way of being a minimalist stage beast. , he did so little that when he raised his eyebrow we were hanging on him, ”
he recalls.
"Small step aside"
So how was this record born?
Little by little, the idea gained ground.
"
And confinement arrived and the idea of being confined with Brassens, that suited me well, and I said to myself:
'
we are going to have fun doing it with Yolande
'
, we are going to have fun with the songs of Brassens
”.
The complicity between the two did the rest.
They have known each other from Les Deschiens, the famous troupe of Jérôme Deschamps and Macha Makeïeff.
Read also Maxime Le Forestier, the ferryman of Brassens
The decision matured in the same way with Yolande Moreau, less familiar with the work of the mustache, even if she had played "
at the age of 14-15 on the guitar
La lament des filles de joie
with a musician friend at a socialist party
" . “
When I was asked to make this record, it was a big step back (laughs), I was scared, but I trust François, I like the way in which he appropriated Devos (
for the show
I have doubts, Editor's note) with a lot of modesty, and I also said to myself that we could have fun ”
, exposes the actress-director. And François Morel to insist:
"We didn't say to ourselves that we were going to dust off Brassens, there is no dust on Brassens, but by taking a small step aside, respecting the text, we might hear it a little differently
.
"
The echo of Billie Holiday
Successful bet with
Brassens in the text
, disc scheduled for this Friday, which visits in spoken-sung the classics of the repertoire of the man with the pipe -
Le Gorille
,
L'Auvergnat
,
Les copains première
, etc - and less known as
The King Louis Orchard
.
This last title offers one of the most beautiful discoveries of the disc.
The text evokes "
hanged rosaries
", these "
incredible fruit clusters
".
And the multi-talented Belgian echoes
Billie Holiday's
“
Strange Fruit
”, which compared the bodies of blacks lynched in racist American states to “
strange fruits
” hanging from trees.
François Morel knew "
that Yolande was capable of doing things like that
".
In a less serious register, their pleasure in playing with texts is evident in
Hécatombe
or even in
Fernande
where, obviously, the first name Yolande finds its place in the famous rhyme.
