Sunday, August 24, 2014

Gainsbourg The Biography ARTBOOK | D.A.P. ISBN: 9780966234671

The late and great Gilles Verlant's magnificent biography on French genius songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Truly one of the great pop music figures on this sorry planet. Verlant spent over 100 hours interviewing Serge as well as doing interviews with all those around him, including iconic figures in the French music and film world. Not only an essential book on Gainsbourg, but also the showbiz world in France from the 1950s to the 1990s. This is the best book on the world of French pop. - Tosh Berman, Publisher TamTam Books


Gainsbourg: The Biography

Published by TamTam Books
By Gilles Verlant. Translated by Paul Knobloch.

When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.” Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.



Gainsbourg The Biography ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 2012 Catalog TamTam Books Books Exhibition Catalogues 9780966234671

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