“From Baschung to Bashung”, the singer’s youthful wanderings reissued

2023-09-23 12:00:07
Alain Bashung, in front of a merry-go-round, in 1967. CLAUDE DELORME

Died in 2009 at the age of 61, Alain Bashung leaves an unfilled void in the landscape of French rock music. His posthumous status is such that, since his death, three complete works (all incomplete) have been published, accompanied by compilations and curiosities ranging from a concert recorded in Troyes in 1981 to his rereading of The Cabbage-Headed Man, by Serge Gainsbourg. More recently, in March, an unexpected performer, Stetson on her head, tackled eleven occasions from her repertoire, with the album The Horses of Pleasure. This is the Quebecois Isabelle Boulay, who lends herself to the exercise in a wise and smooth manner.

The singer does not escape the fate of these writers whose drawers are emptied to publish their drafts or correspondence. There was thus, in 2018, Upstreamcollection of models discarded from the last album published during his lifetime, Blue oil (2008), and finalized by collaborator Edith Fambuena. More problematic today is the reissue for the first time of the twenty songs that Baschung (with the “c” in his marital status, which he dropped along the way) had published from 1966 to 1975, in the form of 45-rpm vinyl records. A decade of groping, if not error, that he had disowned, to the point of firmly opposing any exhumation. The last wife, Chloé Mons, ignored this wish, thus justifying this initiative: “When an artist disappears, the perception of his work changes radically. Suddenly, everything becomes interesting, because it’s about understanding a journey. »

For the cover of his first 45-rpm record, an unknown person poses lying down, balancing unstable on two cubes. The boots are already there, matched with black and white checkered pants topped with a sleeveless red fur-covered shirt. The object includes four titles from Baschung’s pen. Carried by a blues-rock rhythm reminiscent of The Elucubrations by Antoine released in the same year 1966 – therefore under the influence of Bob Dylan – the text of Why do you dream of the United States? makes fun of the hexagonal complexes towards the Americans with strange comparisons and syntax: “That your Frank Sinatra, next to Louis de Funès/Even your Niagara Falls are not worth our vespasiennes. »

Portrait of Alain Bashung, in 1967. CLAUDE DELORME

Raised by a German grandmother in Alsace, where he was forever changed by the discovery of rock’n’roll, the boy previously participated in a folk group, Les Dunces (“the dunces”) and played on bases American NATO soldiers, before being spotted by artistic director Gérard Hugé, who brought him to Philips.

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