Review: Johnny Hallyday Le Roi de France

I've been a bit remiss in writing regular reviews in the blog, so time I put that to rights.

I've got a few releases that require my urgent attention and I'll get them on in the next few days.

In the meanwhile, a release that came out a couple of years ago is taking up much of my listening time, so I thought that a mention was well deserved.

The CD is Le Roi de France by Johnny Hallyday, a collectionm of his work from '66 - '69, and astonishingly it's the first compilation for an English-speaking audience, released by UK based specialist re-issue label RPM.

Johnny was at an interesting time in his career, faced with musical and social changes that could easily have rendered him irrelevant. Back then musical careers were expected to be short. No one thought rock 'n' roll would last. Teenage idols were not expected to age, they'd be replaced and forgotten once another craze came along.

But as this collection shows, Johnny had a firm grasp of what was going on in the music scene and a willingness to experiment and move on from where his career had taken him so far. Although an established act, there was no certainty that it would endure and his enthusiasm to embrace new sounds put him at the forefront of a rapidly-evolving music scene.

It's a period that is too often overlooked, coming as it does outwith the nostalgia for his early hits or his later status as France's biggest star.

There are many highlights on the CD, from his work with Page (Psychedelic and A Tout Casser) to his cover of Hush, (under the title Mal) long before Deep Purple made the track well known. To those of an English-speaking persuasion who might think of Hallyday as either a rock 'n' roll nostalgist, a mediocre translator of dated American music or as an easy listening rock crooner this collection is an absolute eye opener.

The tracks on the compilation show Hallyday to be apparently at ease with the massive changes going through the music scene at the time, enthusiastically embracing psychedelia, high energy garage rock and a heavy soul sound that suited his vocal style and also allowed him to express himself as a more mature artist.

It paid off, and Hallyday was, by the late 60s, the undisputed king of France. This collection explains to the English-speaking audience exactly how that happened.

But the sleeve notes suggest that it all came at a massive personal cost. A suicide attempt giving some indication of the pressure he was under.

Incidentally, while sleeve notes normally provide little more than a re-heat of a well-known hagiography, the sleeve notes with this edition actually illuminate much of the Hallyday story to an audience that doesn't have the familiarity with the subject matter nor the patience to wade through French language volumes.

For many in an English-speaking audience, Johnny remains a footnote in the biographies of other more familiar artists, whether Hendrix or Page. Tracks on the album feature Jimmy Page, along with members of the Small Faces and later Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. This compilation shows that Johnny's involvement with figures like these didn't come out of nowhere and I suspect the musical respect went both ways.

If there's a measure of the success of a compilation, it's whether or not it provokes the listener into further exploration. On the strength of this release I realise my knowledge of the French psych scene is almost non-existent, and it's time to investigate further. Any suggestions welcome!