A new release by Johnny Hallyday on the horizon, with a box set entitled Son rêve américain the latest posthumous release continuing his legacy.
With two significant studio albums and a number of live releases, he's done well to keep up his release schedule despite no longer being with us since 2017. The Mon pays c'est l'amour and Johnny releases were massive sellers, confirming that the demand for new product - particularly in the run-up to Christmas - remains undiminished.
Son rêve américain differs from other releases in that it is a box set, featuring two films, one chronicling his motorcycle road trip in 2016, and another documenting his US live dates. Three CDs present a live gig from New York in 2014, and the soundtrack for the films, including an unreleased track Deux sortes d'hommes, released as a single ahead of the package.
Deux sortes d'hommes was a blues rocker originally recorded for his 2014 Rester Vivant album, but dropped before release. The video is nicely put together montage of Hallyday archive footage, from the 60s to more recent years, and shots from his road trip.
It's as strong as much of his later material. While not exactly covering much new ground, it plays to his strengths and doesn't sound like a below-par offcut. It does raise the question of how much unreleased material there actually is in the Hallyday vault, as this collection is essentially just another live release with an almost homeopathic level of actual unreleased studio material.
In the motorcycle footage, Hallyday could easily pass for any elderly biker and would probably not get a second glance from anyone else on the road.
For all his love of America, and his years living there, Hallyday was never as big a name there as he was in France. Perhaps the anonymity that gave him is one of the reasons he liked it.
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