Michel Fugain

Michel Fugain first saw the light of day in Grenoble in 1942 as a French singer-songwriter whose name would later become synonymous with a handful of emblematic early-seventies recordings made alongside the musicians of Big Bazar. The tracks Fais comme l'oiseau and Une belle histoire emerged almost immediately as anthems of the hippie era. Having set aside his medical training, he settled in Paris in 1964 and began supplying material to established performers such as Dalida and Hugues Auffray. Four years later he assembled the loose collective of artists and players known as Big Bazar, only to dissolve the venture in 1976 and replace it with a fresh ensemble that operated under his own banner, La Compagnie Michel Fugain. After reaching his commercial zenith during the 1970s his releases continued at a noticeably gentler tempo until the death of his daughter Laurette in 2002 prompted a complete withdrawal from the music industry. A 2005 invitation from the channel M6 to front a new program titled Attention Mesdames et Messieurs briefly raised the possibility of a return, yet Fugain soon withdrew, convinced he had been misled and deeply wounded. Seeking a measure of closure he issued Bravo et merci two years afterward, an album of covers drawn from the catalogues of songwriters he revered, among them Charles Aznavour and Maxime LeForestier, an undertaking that carried the unmistakable air of a valedictory statement.