Louis Bertignac

Louis Bertignac first gained recognition as a founding guitarist in the pioneering French rock outfit Téléphone, though he later pursued an intermittent but rewarding path as a solo singer and songwriter beginning in 1993. Shaped by British rock acts of the 1960s and 1970s such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Who, he entered the world on February 23, 1954, in Oran, Algeria, before relocating to France in 1957. His earliest studio appearance came as guitarist on Jacques Higelin’s Irradié in 1976; that same year he helped establish Téléphone, whose self-titled debut arrived the next year. Widely regarded as the leading French rock ensemble of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the group disbanded in 1986 following five studio albums and one final live release. After the split Bertignac assembled his own group, Les Visiteurs, issuing Bertignac et les Visiteurs in 1987 and Rocks in 1990. His first proper solo outing, Elle et Louis, appeared in 1993 under the production of Tony Visconti, followed soon by the live acoustic set Bertignacoustic in 1994. The subsequent studio album, 96, emerged in 1996 with Chris Kimsey at the helm and was succeeded by the live recording Bertignac in 1998. A lengthy interval preceded Longtemps in 2005; during the interim he produced Carla Bruni’s Quelqu’un M’a Dit in 2004, for which she supplied the bulk of the lyrics. Another live effort, Power Trio, surfaced in 2006 before another extended hiatus, broken by the release of his fourth solo studio album, Grizzly (C’est Vraiment Moi), in 2011.