Two minutes fifty moving and unpublished.
This nugget should satisfy fans of Johnny Hallyday.
It is at the heart of a special set of 4 vinyl LPs which will be released this Friday with the complete recordings of Taulier made and released in 1970. This magic box contains both a remastered version of his album "Vie" and "Le Specialist”, this miraculous forgotten song whose band we thought had completely disappeared.
This is the fourth title that Universal comes out of oblivion.
Originally, this title, which evokes the (imaginary) confessions of a contract killer, was to belong to the soundtrack of the film "The Specialist", a spaghetti western by Italian Sergio Corbucci, released in theaters in spring 1970. "It was the first main role that the rocker had in the cinema, with the actress Françoise Fabian", explains Xavier Perrot, the artistic manager of the Hallyday catalog at Universal.
With his team, this well of science, constantly on the lookout for unreleased items in the collections of the record company that owns all of the singer's repertoire recorded between 1961 and 2005, hunts down every day the treasures hitherto never before. published.
“We go back and trace, year by year, the recording career of Johnny Hallyday.
We looked at 1979, 1985, and the period from 1966 to 1969.”
Lately, these research heads have once again combed through the entire production of the year 1970: "We listen to and list studio records, live recordings, even radio archives - Europe 1 and RTL which rebroadcast concerts - and those of television, thanks to the competitions of the national audiovisual institute (INA)", details Xavier Perrot.
Via the network of Taulier fans, these professionals knew that a musical trace of the "Specialist" existed. Only here, "my predecessor, Jean-Yves Billet, had not found anything for many years and I very sincerely thought that this tape, recorded for Phillips, was lost forever", says the person in charge of the Hallyday catalog. Its fine team of documentalists has nevertheless managed to unearth it in the archives of the record company. The recording at the time was made in mono. Universal then launches a very sharp work to restore it and remix it in stereo thanks to current technologies and to offer an optimal listening comfort.
In addition to "The specialist" and the album "Life", the box includes several other documents, real bonuses.
In particular, there are "alternative takes", that is to say other tests of the same title made in the studio before the final choice of the version, or even extracts from recordings of concerts, one of which in Cambrai (North).
Much of Johnny's repertoire has yet to be explored by Universal.
We can therefore hope to (re) discover other new pearls.
"The Specialist",
single available this Friday on listening platforms, and on vinyl on March 11.
Super collector vinyl LP box set (3 LPs, CDs, “Vie”, DVD edition) limited to 2,000 copies and Super De Luxe t box set (4 CDs), limited edition to 4,000 copies.