Henri Salvador

Henri Salvador maintained one of the most extended professional paths among French cabaret performers, stepping onto the stage in the middle of the 1930s and continuing to commit material to tape with consistent quality well into the twenty-first century. Throughout much of that span his reputation rested on nimble jazz guitar playing, sharp comedic timing, humorous novelty tunes, and a clear Brazilian flavor running through his chanson style. Already a household name across France by the close of World War II, he devoted much of the 1970s to material aimed at younger listeners before drawing his earlier following back to him. With the arrival of Chambre Avec Vue in 2000 he transformed his image once more through a soft, reflective set of romantic ballads that, partly because of the Buena Vista Social Club wave, later reached American audiences via a re-release on the historic jazz imprint Blue Note.

Born July 18, 1917, in Cayenne, French Guiana, Salvador traced his paternal lineage to Spanish roots while his mother descended from Caribbean indigenous people; both parents had entered the world on Guadeloupe. The household relocated to Paris once he reached age seven, and by eleven he first encountered American jazz through the recordings of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Guitar study followed, shaped above all by the peerless gypsy-jazz figure Django Reinhardt, and at sixteen he secured his initial paid engagement with Paul Raiss’ orchestra. In 1935 he began appearing with a jazz quartet at Jimmy’s Bar, a well-known cabaret spot. That platform not only showcased his emerging gifts as a humorist but also led to a 1936 booking alongside American violinist Eddy South and an introduction to his idol Django Reinhardt, whom he briefly accompanied.

World War II halted the upward trajectory when Salvador enlisted in 1937 and completed four years of service. Upon discharge he joined Bernard Hilda’s jazz ensemble based in Cannes, then moved to orchestra leader Ray Ventura, who valued his humorous stage presence. Ventura’s unit spent much of the war’s remaining period traveling through South America, especially Brazil, where Salvador’s vocal imitations of Popeye became a highlight. He gave his first solo concerts in Brazil during 1942; upon returning to France in 1945 he resolved to pursue an independent career.

The Brazilian sojourn freed him from Reinhardt’s prevailing shadow and prompted the addition of samba rhythms to much of his later output. Forming his own ensemble, he recorded his debut solo sides for Polydor in 1947, among them “Clopin Clopant,” “Maladie de l’Amour,” and “Ma Doudou.” The next year he appeared in the operetta Le Chevalier Bayard with Yves Montand. In 1949 he received the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros for the pair of successes “Parce Que Ça Me Donne du Courage” and “Le Portrait de Tante Caroline,” then followed those with the enduring favorite “Le Loup, la Biche, et le Chevalier (Une Chanson Douce).”

Most of the early 1950s found him performing live throughout France and overseas. He switched to the Philips roster in 1952 and delivered the LP À Pleyel in 1955. Late the following year he made his initial visit to the United States amid the rock & roll boom. After a slot on The Ed Sullivan Show he returned home and teamed with lyricist Boris Vian. Under the alias Henri Cording he began crafting rock & roll numbers with Vian and cutting them alongside the Original Rock and Roll Boys; the resulting lighthearted novelties “Rock and Roll Mops” and “Le Blues du Dentiste” offered French listeners some of their earliest encounters with the emerging genre. He moved to the Barclay label in 1958, yet Vian died the next year after the two had jointly written more than four hundred songs in their short but remarkably fertile association.

Salvador pressed ahead, extracting the live set Alhambra from appearances at the venue of the same name in 1960. A twelve-week engagement on Italian television in 1961 prompted him to focus almost entirely on that medium for future stage work. Together with his wife Jacqueline he launched the publishing company and imprint Disques Salvador, quickly strengthening it with the 1962 hit “Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir.” The Monsieur Boum Boum LP followed in 1963, after which he established the Rigolo label that housed a string of successful singles between 1964 and 1968, including “Syracuse,” “Zorro Est Arrivé” (an adaptation of the Coasters’ “Along Came Jones”), “Le Travail C’est le Santé,” “Juanita Banana,” “Veunise,” “Quand Faut Y Aller, Faut Y Aller,” and “Mon Pote le Blues.” He concluded the decade with several popular television specials and the 1969 album C’est Beau de Faire un Show.

In 1971 Salvador adopted the persona of a children’s entertainer with an original composition that summarized the Disney film The Aristocats. The resulting album, Henri Salvador Chante 'Les Aristochats' et le Monde Merveilleux de Disney, earned him a second Grand Prix du Disque. Over the next five years he produced five additional children’s collections drawn largely from Disney features, notably Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Robin Hood, and Pinocchio, while also setting La Fontaine fables to music. After his wife’s passing in 1976 he resumed adult-oriented recording, releasing Salvador 77 and Les Canotiers within the next two years. In 1979 he issued Salvador/Vian, a tribute revisiting twelve of his best-known collaborations with Boris Vian. Salvador en Fête appeared in 1980, gathering highlights from his earlier catalog.

Thereafter Salvador reduced his studio schedule, emphasizing television appearances and a return to live concerts in 1982 that was captured on the double album Live du Spectacle de la Porte de Pantin. In 1984 he closed his own label—partly because Jacqueline had managed most of its daily affairs—and signed with EMI/Pathé Marconi, debuting on the roster with the entirely new Henri in 1985. The French songwriters’ union SACEM presented him its Grand Prix de l’Humour in 1987, and the following year he was named a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur. A fresh collection, Des Goûts et des Couleurs, surfaced in 1989 and proved to be his final project for EMI.

Salvador opened the 1990s by revisiting his jazz and blues origins. He performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991 and, two years later, shared the stage with the distinguished French jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani. In 1994 he entered a new agreement with Sony and traveled to New York to record the jazzy Monsieur Henri, followed a year later by the live set Casino de Paris. At the 1996 Victoires de la Musique Awards he accepted a lifetime-achievement honor and performed a duet with Ray Charles.

After several years of relative quiet, Salvador reentered the studio in 2000 with Chambre Avec Vue, a prominent comeback featuring contributions from emerging songwriters, a duet with Françoise Hardy, and some of his first self-composed material in many years. The gentle, intimate blend of French pop and bossa nova proved enormously popular in France and secured him Best Male Artist and Album of the Year trophies at the Victoires de la Musique. Buoyed by the recent American success of the Buena Vista Social Club album and film, which had elevated older international artists, Blue Note reissued the project under its English title, Room with a View, in 2002. Salvador then mounted a widely acclaimed tour across France and North America. He followed with the stylistically similar Ma Chère et Tendre in 2003, and three years later released Révérence, an album tracked largely in Brazil that included collaborations with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Henri Salvador passed away at age 90 from a ruptured aneurysm at his Paris residence on February 13, 2008.