Jacques Brel

Jacques Brel, born 8 April 1929 in Schaerbeek (Belgium) and who died on 9 October 1978 in Bobigny (France), was a Belgian singer-songwriter, poet, actor and director.

In the early 1950s, Jacques Brel left his native Belgium to try his luck as a singer in Paris. Supported and encouraged by Jacques Canetti, he had difficult beginnings, before achieving recognition in 1956 with his first major hit, Quand on n'a que l'amour. From then on, hit followed hit: Je ne sais pas, La valse à mille temps, Les Flamandes, Le moribond, Madeleine and, above all, Ne me quitte pas, considered one of the greatest French songs. Brel firmly established himself as a mainstay of French song, both as a writer and as a performer, in the studio and on stage, where his committed, embodied singing caused a sensation.

Touring extensively and returning regularly to the Olympia in Paris for more than a decade, Jacques Brel, at the height of his popularity, gave up live singing tours in 1966. Although he still recorded a few records and staged L'Homme de la Mancha, he then devoted himself to film, acting in around ten films, two of which he wrote and directed, Franz and Le Far West (selected for the official selection at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival).

In 1973, he left the film industry, took to the sea on a sailboat, and finally settled, with his companion Maddly Bamy, in the Marquesas Islands; on a final album, in 1977, he devoted a song to the archipelago.

Diagnosed with lung cancer, Jacques Brel died at the age of 49 in October 1978.

Alongside Léo Ferré, Georges Brassens and Jean Ferrat, Jacques Brel is considered one of the greats of French chanson, and his recorded output includes numerous songs that have become classics: Les bourgeois, Le Plat Pays, Les vieux, La Fanette, Amsterdam, Ces gens-là, La Chanson des vieux amants, Vesoul...

With more than 25 million albums sold internationally, Brel is an icon of French chanson. Although most of his songs were recorded in French, he became, in his time, a source of inspiration for many English-speaking singer-songwriters such as David Bowie, Mort Shuman, Alex Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Marc Almond and Rod McKuen. Several of his songs were also translated into English in the United States and performed notably by Ray Charles, Judy Collins, John Denver, the Kingston Trio, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, and Andy Williams.