Georges Brassens (October 22, 1921 - October 29, 1981) was a French singer-songwriter.
Georges Brassens was born in Sète (then called Cette), a town in southern France near Montpellier. Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his simple, elegant songs and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France's most accomplished postwar poets. He has also set to music poems by both well-known and relatively obscure poets, including Louis Aragon (Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux), Victor Hugo, Jean Richepin, François Villon, and Guillaume Apollinaire. He rarely performed outside his own country, and his lyrics are difficult to translate, though attempts have been made.
He began his career in the 1950s. He performed with an acoustic guitar; most of the time, his only accompanying musician was his friend Pierre Nicolas with a double bass, and sometimes a second guitar (Barthélémy Rosso, Joël Favreau). He never suspected that one day he'd have an international renown. His idol, Paul Misraki, a singer who sang everywhere, never became famous among the general public. Now more than 50 doctoral dissertations have been written about Georges Brassens, and many artists from Japan, Russia, the United States (where there is a Georges Brassens' fan club), Italy and Spain make cover versions of his songs. His songs have been translated into 20 languages, including Esperanto.
Many singers have covered Georges Brassens' lyrics in other languages, for instance Fabrizio De André (in Italian), Graeme Allwright and Jake Thackray (in English), Sam Alpha (in creole), Yossi Banai (in Hebrew), Jiøí Dìdeèek (in Czech), Mark Freidkin (in Russian), Paco Ibáñez and Javier Krahe (in Spanish), Jacques Ivart (in esperanto), Franz Josef Degenhardt and Ralf Tauchmann (in German) and Zespó³ Reprezentacyjny and Piotr Machalica (in Polish), Cornelis Vreeswijk (Swedish) and Tuula Amberla (in Finnish). Dieter Kaiser, a Belgian-German singer who performs in public concerts with the French-German professional guitarrist Stéphane Bazire under the name Stéphane & Didier has translated into German language and gathered in a brochure 19 chansons of Brassens.
He also issued 1 CD in German and 1 in French with various chansons of Brel, Brassens, Trenet, Jean Ferrat, Barbara, Aznavour and Bécaud. He also translated among others the poem "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux" of the French contemporary poet Louis Aragon. Franco-Cameroonian singer Kristo Numpuby also released a cover-album with the original French lyrics but adapted the songs to various African rhythms.
Nowadays, there is an international association of Georges Brassens fans. There is also a fan club in Berlin-Basdorf which organizes a Brassens festival every year in September. Brassens composed about 250 songs, but only 200 were recorded. The other 50 were unfinished. Renée Claude, an important Québécois singer, dedicates a tribute-album to him, J'ai rendez-vous avec vous (1993). His songs have a major influence on younger French singers (Maxime Le Forestier, Renaud Séchan, Bénabar etc).
45 Tracks.
Released 2008.