Estelle Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 The French singer and songwriter (and occasionally actor) Alain Bashung died on March 14 ago from lung cancer. He was 61, and his last public performance was two weeks before at the "Victoires de la Musique" (French music awards) where he was given 3 awards, actually it was quite heart-wrenching to see him so frail and thin on stage... Here's a link to an obituary in English: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...on-1647308.html and some articles in French: http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2009...#ens_id=1168112 http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2009/...#ens_id=1168112 He had announced in 2008 (when his latest album was released) that he was suffering from cancer, and had given a lot of concerts in spite of his failing health, the last one being only three months before his death. I can't say I know well his songs (and their lyrics often are very hard to understand, with a lot of puns and metaphors) but some of his songs like "Gaby", "Vertiges de l'amour", "Ma petite entreprise" or "La nuit je mens" had been very successful in France, and there are lesser known works like "Aucun express" that I find quite moving. Also, one of his records included a reading of "Jamais d'autre que toi", a poem by Robert Desnos, one of my very favorite poets, and any way to make Desnos' works better know is worth encouraging. Many videos of his songs are available online (including youtube, with some amateur recordings of some of his last concerts...) (Edited to add:) From all what I've read about him, he was always depicted as very unpretentious, generous and a bit shy. Link to comment
dirac Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Thank you for posting the news and the links, Estelle. I'm not familiar with his music but it sounds like an interesting career. Link to comment
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