Juliette Gréco

Juliette Gréco ranked among the foremost French vocalists of the twentieth century, serving as an inspirational presence in the Parisian literary circles of the 1950s, a guiding influence over the songwriter-driven French pop that defined the 1960s, and an ever-evolving cabaret performer who sustained her craft from the 1970s onward into the 2010s. Born in Montpellier during 1929, she received classical instruction at the Paris Opera during her childhood. When the Second World War erupted she was compelled to leave Paris, and after her mother was imprisoned in 1943 for resisting the Nazi occupation she effectively grew up without parents, finding shelter instead with her former French instructor in the St. Germain des Prés district.

During the closing stages of the conflict the artistic and literary milieu of the Left Bank reached new vitality, and Gréco became a regular participant in that environment, forming close ties with Sartre along with other prominent writers while performing in theater productions and on a literary radio program. The deprivations she endured throughout the war shaped her political outlook and prepared the ground for the bold personal freedom she displayed once hostilities ended, turning her into the emblematic figure of the emerging bohemian milieu.

Gréco launched her singing career to strong critical notice in 1949, introducing material whose texts came from leading French poets such as Jacques Prévert with “Les Feuilles Mortes,” Jules Laforgue with “L’Eternel Féminin,” and Raymond Queneau with “Si Tu T’Imagines,” each set to music by Joseph Kosma. In the freshly minted postwar songs, textual content took precedence over the expansive orchestral arrangements then favored by artists like Edith Piaf, and Gréco’s intellectually inclined approach positioned her as an ideal exponent of this fresh direction. Her vocal manner combined the heightened dramatic diction associated with Jacques Brel and the wry phrasing typical of Georges Brassens—figures active in markedly separate musical spheres—while adding a distinctly sensual timbre that remained uniquely hers. Two years afterward she issued the track “Je Suis Qui Je Suis,” again featuring words by Prévert and music by Kosma, and the release became a major success for her.

Following tours through Brazil and the United States, Gréco came back to Paris in 1954 and scored a triumph at the Olympia Hall with “Je Hais les Dimanches,” a composition by the young Charles Aznavour. She spent most of the remainder of the decade pursuing a flourishing screen career in the United States before returning to Paris in 1959, at which point she entered a new chapter of her recording work by championing an emerging generation of French songwriters in the early 1960s. Among those with whom she worked were Serge Gainsbourg, who supplied her with “La Javanaise,” together with Léo Ferré and Guy Béart. By 1968, already widely known through prominent television spots and her prior recordings, she put out the openly erotic number “Deshabillez-Moi,” a piece that signaled a departure from the literary and intellectual emphasis that had previously characterized her repertoire.

After her recording activity encountered a temporary slowdown in the early 1970s owing to difficulties with record labels, Gréco initiated the next phase of her career in 1975 by forming a close partnership with Gérard Jouannest, the longtime pianist for Jacques Brel, who thereafter composed music for many of the texts written especially for her; the two married in 1989. Subsequent albums issued in the 1980s with Gréco ’83 and in the 1990s with the acclaimed Juliette Gréco demonstrated her continued willingness to explore new territory while also introducing fresh songwriting voices such as Etienne Roda-Gil and Caetano Veloso. She brought out Un Jour d’Été et Quelques Nuits in 1998, and in 2004 the album Aimez-Vous les Uns les Autres ou Bien Disparaissez marked a genuine artistic resurgence, highlighted by collaborations with younger musicians Miossec and Benjamin Biolay. Le Temps d’une Chanson followed in 2006, and Qu’on Est Bien: La Valse Brune appeared two years later. The studio album Je Me Souviens De Tout was released in 2009, with Gréco supported on piano by her husband Gérard Jouannest and on accordion by Jean-Louis Matinier; to mark the occasion the trio presented four concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Given the breadth of her output across numerous labels, a series of compilations emerged in subsequent years, among them the double-disc Si Tu T’imagines: Le Siècle D’or on Harmonia Mundi and Chante…Gainsbourg et Les Autres! on Go Hit. She honored Jacques Brel with Gréco Chante Brel in 2014 and became the focus of the 13-disc retrospective L’Essentielle the following year. While on her sold-out Thank You tour across Europe in 2016 she suffered a stroke and was forced to cancel the remaining engagements in order to recuperate. In 2018, at the age of 91, she resumed recording, yet none of the resulting material saw release. Juliette Gréco passed away at her residence near Saint-Tropez on September 23, 2020; she was 93.