2023-04-15 20:00:14
FRANCE 3 SATURDAY APRIL 15 – 9:10 PM – DOCUMENTARY
Cerrone, Village People, Patrick Juvet… Welcome to Saturday night fever! A French-speaking fever of which this documentary by François Chaumont details the stages.
It is not a musical adventure that is told to us, but a business story – which is remixed in “a much more protest movement than it seems, capable of transforming dance floors into machines for integrating all sexual and ethnic minorities”says the voiceover of Emilie Mazoyer, the host of the program “Décibels”, on France Bleu.
In the 1970s, music made for dancing emerged across the Atlantic. “Binary with a fast tempo (…) mix of pop melody and funk orchestration », recalls Sacem, which, in 2019, devoted an exhibition to disco made in France in its virtual museum. A “joyful, disorderly, hedonistic, liberating movement”claimed today by Juliette Armanet, Clara Luciani, Izïa…
Three phenomena mark the triumph of french sound. Cerrone (Marc of his first name), young drummer whose first single, Love in C Minor, catches the ear of a New York DJ. The Village People group, incarnation in 1977 of the gay New York of Greenwich Village, which will make the fortune of its creators, Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. Born to Be Alivein 1979, global hit by Patrick Hernandez which remains one of the most sold and listened to titles in the history of disco, even today.
Claude François, Dalida, Johnny, France Gall will ride the wave. In 1977, Sheila crossed the Atlantic to revive herself with a disco version of Singin’ in the Rain, the song from the eponymous film. Honored by Gene Kelly, she says she is very proud of “hearing on the radio in New York”. The American dream is on.
“Alexandria Alexandra”
The young Carène Cheryl renames herself Karen Cheryl to take the turn of the disco, “the first musical genre that really advocates narcissism, where everyone becomes their own star”says today Isabelle Morizet (her real name).
Patrick Juvet, known for Where are the women ?becomes a world star with I Love America, which Jacques Morali composed for him. Cloclo, faithful to the language of Molière, convinces the lyricist of Julien Clerc, Etienne Roda-Gil, to write to him Magnolias Forever et Alexandria Alexandra. The latter will flatter himself “to have introduced poetry into disco”.
Didier Marouani, tired of opening for Joe Dassin, takes his Polydor record company by surprise by launching without saying so the group Space, whose musicians wear astronaut helmets – twenty years before Daft Punk. Daft Punk, of which Thomas Bangalter, one of the founders, is none other than the son of Daniel Vangarde, who revisited salsa in disco mode with the Gibson Brothers – a group from Martinique. In 1978, Le Palace opened in Paris, “the disco cave”.
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