2023-11-26 06:03:01
“We were young and broad-shouldered…” When Bernard Lavilliers makes this confidence which opens On the Road Again, the thrill always passes. Laid on a carpet of folk strings, this emblematic title released in 1988, which he reinterprets today, sets the tone for his new album. A voice full of emotion and calm, songs that are recreated with the experience of a life, the scale of an orchestra: Metamorphosis enhances the highlights of half a century of music.
Lavilliers had worked alone during Covid to prepare his previous record, the meditative Under a huge sun (2021). This time, he has surrounded himself well to revisit his “classics”. At 77, with his lifelong musicians, the support of composer Cyrille Aufort and an orchestra of more than 50 instrumentalists governed by violinist Anne Gravoin, he rediscovered the pleasure of the collective.
The strength of the words, intact, stands out from new arrangements whose opulence serves as texts. Black and white, great song committed against tyranny, can be listened to again with the same emotion charged with the same anger: “Music sometimes has major chords. »
Carried by an accordion and a Latin American rhythm, the cry launched by disposable workers in The Golden Handsresonates more. “I would like to work again/Forge red steel with my golden hands”. Lavilliers the skinned alive does not forget Betty in his prison, nor Petit, child in charge of “gun too big” : it still brings them comfort and the promise of a better future.
Happiness is within song’s reach. He reminds us of this with his usual enthusiasm, moving between jazz and bossa-nova in The Gringo in duet with Flavia Coelho. Sparkling, mischievous, the Brazilian singer enchants with the swing of her voice this title of travel and encounter. Good music, a joyous celebration, a brightening horizon… And we find Lavilliers, always ready to push away the shadows and taste life.
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