I
Sixties

The sixties were the years of the teen idols. Artists like Claude Francois, France Gall and Francoise Hardy appealed to French teenagers with light songs about dancing and romance. Pop with a jazz twist was brought by Claude Nougaro and Jacques Dutronc. Michel Polnareff started his career in de the sixties and would soon turn out to be pop ‘enfant terrible’.

Together with Polnareff the borders of what socially was permitted were sought in the second half of the sixties. And it was not only the new artists that got inspired by the (sexual) freedoms the sixties provided. Gréco recorded ‘Déshabillez moi’ and Gainsbourg had a hit with Jane Birkin in ‘Je t’aime (moi non plus)’. It was a matter of if you were ‘in’ or ‘out’. And most serious artists definitely tried to be in. The end of the sixties was also the time for protest against the establishment and the government.

And that subjects weren’t brought lightly can be heard if one listens to artists like Leo Ferré (La Solitude) Colette Magny and Catherine Ribeiro. It was also the time of the French blues. One of the best examples of the French Blues were made by female singer Nicoletta (know for the original of ‘Mamy blue’) and the hermit Gerard Manset who released his ‘Animale on est male’ in 1968. But of course also in traditional chanson new artists arose amongst singer and songwriter Barbara maybe was the most typical for the era.