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  1. #1

    Claude François - on Motown!

    It's surprising what you can stumble across when trawling through DFTMC. Apparantly the French star recorded four tracks at Hitsville, in French, on 5th March 1971, all produced by Hank Cosby. Three are Four Tops covers - same old song [c'est la meme chanson], shake me wake me [reveille-moi], and bernadette [same title], along with a fourth original song called 'Ballons et les Belles', part written by François himself.

    It appears they appeared on an album in France in 1971 [[on the Disques-Fleche label), and subsequently on a 2010 French CD. I've tracked them down - to me 'ballons' is the weakest of the 4, with the other three all sounding a bit "1971 guest appearance on the Dusty Springfield Show" [[UK readers will know what I mean), but pretty good nonetheless, particularly 'shake me'.

    The interesting thing to me is that, unlike the Richard Anthony buy-in on VIP in 1965, these are actual motown produced tracks so could theoretically have been released on US or UK motown back in the day [[language barrier notwithstanding). They did not appear on Motown Around The World, though. I'd be interested to know if anyone on here knows more about the story behind these tracks and this rather unusual coming together of Motown and an A list [[in 1971) French singer.
    Last edited by psychedelic jacques; 09-17-2022 at 08:33 AM.

  2. #2
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    That'sinteresting, didn't know that. Seems like they may have wanted the authentic Motown Sound on thos tracks and it's interesting that there are 4 because that's enough for an EP - very popular back then. Lots of foreign artists would record cover versions of songs tha then appeared on their EPs - such as Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday etc. I understand that Matt Monro did some recording at the Mowest studios, but I can't recall which tracks.

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    Here are videos of Claude's four Motown/Hitsville-recorded songs:

    C'est La Mer Chanson:


    Bernadette:

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    Here are the other two:

    Réveille-Moi:


    Les Ballons Et Les Billes:

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    Great detective work Dan!

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    The song "Les ballons et les balles " is listed in the session logs as "Si Petit". I also have that track but with a different title from Claude and only found out the "Balloons"title when I bought the C'est La Meme Chanson book cd. I have written about Claude's Motown work several times on Soulful Detroit so you might want to check the archives. Name:  IMG_20220918_162645.jpg
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    Notes from book cd Name:  IMG_20220918_163719.jpg
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    more notes Name:  IMG_20220918_163730.jpg
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    Attached Images Attached Images  

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    Sorry for messing up the photo postings.

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    Motown...cool in ANY language!

  12. #12
    I did do an archive search before posting, xtown, but I couldn't find anything - and I can't read French [even the right way up!], so a precis on how this deal came about would be useful.
    PJ

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    Oh Jacques......I thought you was French and that's why I posted it!

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    The way he sounds out Bernadette takes some getting used to!

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