“It would make him so happy for you to talk about his love for music.
Being a singer was her last challenge.
A few hours after the disappearance of actress Charlotte Valandrey, at the age of 53, on Wednesday July 13, one of her best friends made this confession to us on the phone, between sadness and regret.
“If all the people who pay tribute to her today on their social networks had reached out to her when she was there… Her album, she really fought to get it out.
»
Her first real album, “À tout à l'heure”, was released on June 4, 2021. She financed the recording herself and created a label for it, “Back To Life” – “Rétour à la vie” .
The Parisian studio Haut de Gamme and the distributor Kuroneko helped her produce it, but she had to start a kitty on the Web to pay for the manufacture of the CDs, the promotion and the marketing.
A beautiful album on loneliness, love, death
On her Instagram account, she kept her "angels" informed of the progress of the project.
“I'm so happy to have received the CDs and I'm going to send them to you”, she announced one day.
“We are at nearly 7,000 euros,” she rejoiced another.
Or: “We have 40,000 plays, I am super happy.
»
Produced and composed largely by Johan Czerneski, "À tout à l'heure" is a beautiful album of French songs, eleven simple songs carried by acoustic guitars, where she delivers herself on the thread of emotion and poetry. on loneliness, on his hopes — a new love in “Before You” —, on death — “Talking to the Stars” —, on his regrets.
Read alsoDeath of Charlotte Valandrey, fighter of a lifetime, incredible warrior
“To love others, you have to love yourself.
It was my great dilemma,” she sings in “My Lamented,” about a lover she had become pregnant with and aborted because she was afraid of transmitting AIDS to her baby.
Marc Lavoine's "coup de coeur"
The song that had the most impact is a duet with Marc Lavoine, “À tout à l'heure”, of which she made a clip.
"When we started the album, three or four years ago, I suggested to Charlotte that she contact a singer to do a duet and in some way sponsor her as a singer," says Johan Czerneski.
She had the same acting agent as Marc Lavoine and she sent him the demo of the song.
Marc Lavoine listened to it in his car and fell in love.
He announced it immediately on TV and we recorded it a week later, just before confinement.
»
“We had put all our heart into this album, continues the director of the disc.
We had finished it before the pandemic and we had to release it on a label.
Unfortunately, the label suffered financially and it didn't happen.
We managed to get it out despite everything, but Charlotte and I had the balls that it didn't get more attention.
»
"No more time to waste / Just time to love"
"He deserved better", also believes Frédéric Zeitoun, who wrote the other flagship song of the album, "More time to lose".
This song could have given its title to the album, it sums it up so much.
Listening to it again today is a shock.
She sings there in a verse: "At the age, at the time that I have / Nothing can resist / My unpinned heart".
And repeats in the chorus: "No more time to waste / Just time to love".
"I listened to it again and it sent shivers down my spine", confides Frédéric Zeitoun, in shock at the disappearance of this "great woman, free, volcanic, whom we wanted to follow".
"It was Johan, who had taken part in my second album, who put us in contact," says Frédéric Zeitoun.
I ate with her and I met a very cash girl, in a hurry, she told me
I have no time to waste
.
I wrote the song in the afternoon and she told me it was totally her.
When she wanted to say shit to someone, she didn't send it on a cardboard.
She was not politically correct, she had this urgency pegged to the body, in her art too.
This album was essential for her.
»
“When she was 17, David Bowie told her she had to try”
“Music was a new challenge for Charlotte, continues her close friend.
Reaching 50 years old was a challenge, singing on stage on her 50th birthday
(November 29, 2018 at the Zèbre de Belleville)
a challenge, releasing an album another challenge, and she succeeded in them all.
She wanted to sing for a very long time.
When she was 17, David Bowie told her she had to try because she had a nice tone of voice.
She had filmed in her clip (
As The World Falls Down,
on the soundtrack of the film
Labyrinth
in 1986) but the disease occurred.
She kept this dream in a corner of her head.
»
Paris (XIVe), Thursday January 7, 2015. Actress, author, musician... Charlotte Valandrey accumulated the caps.
She had "the urgency pegged to the body", says of her Frédéric Zeitoun, who wrote for her first album.
LP/Guillaume Georges
In 2013, Charlotte Valandrey had told on her Facebook account that David Bowie had noticed her in "Red Kiss" (the film with Lambert Wilson who revealed her in 1985).
“He only wanted me for his clip, I was told, what a story, she wrote when her daughter Tara had found traces of this clip.
I didn't really know his music, I preferred French rock, that of my lover (…).
David was charming, we drank champagne in his dressing room.
I wasn't impressed, because I didn't know him well, and it amused him, it changed him.
»
“She had a lot of charisma on stage”
The lover she was talking about was Stéphane Sirkis, who was a guitarist in Indochine, his brother Nicola's group, from 1982 until his death in 1999. "Charlotte hung out with Indochine, the Portes Manteaux, she was very rock" , recalls his press officer, François Troller.
“But she had very eclectic musical tastes, she liked Daho, Breton too,” adds her friend.
"And the French song: Gainsbourg (
who had invited her to his house when she was 20 to write him a song, but she had fled and never called back)
, Biolay, Goldman, Berger, the variety of the 1980s She opened for
Stars 80
and had a blast,” adds Johan Czerneski.
His last concert took place on October 13, 2021, at the Café de la Danse, in Paris.
"She had produced it herself and if she was happy to have lived it, she was a little disappointed that the room was not full", admits Frédéric Zeitoun, who came to sing with her "No more time to lose ".
“On stage, she had something.
»
"She had a lot of charisma on stage," agrees Johan Czerneski.
With each concert, she progressed.
We were slowed down by her treatments, but she wanted to continue.
“Two months ago, she called me so that we could write a play together, even though I had never done it, testifies Frédéric Zeitoun.
She was asking me to write her new songs, she wanted to make a new album…”
