Jacques Brel, born Jacques Romain Georges Brel on April 8, 1929, in Schaerbeek, Belgium, was a towering figure in French-language chanson. He was a singer, songwriter, actor, and director, whose passionate performances and poetic lyrics left an indelible mark on music and culture.
Early Life and Influences
Brel came from a Flemish Catholic family of industrialists. His father, Romain Brel (1883-1964), was a native French speaker of Flemish descent, and his mother, Lisette Van Adorp (1896-1964), was from Brussels. Although he excelled in French class, he was not very interested in school as a child. With his brother Pierre (1923-2001), who was six years older, Jacques was raised in a Catholic school and participated in the scout movement. At the age of fifteen, after reading Jules Verne and Jack London, he began writing long poems and short stories. At sixteen, he formed a theater company with friends and wrote and performed plays as an amateur with the Franche Cordée, a Catholic youth movement.
His father brought him into the family cardboard factory, where he worked in the sales department from 1947 to 1953, a job he detested. He considered becoming a chicken farmer, shoemaker, or singer. He chose the latter and wrote whenever and wherever he could.
Marriage and Early Musical Career
On June 1, 1950, Brel married Thérèse Michielsen, known as "Miche," a secretary at an electrical company whom he had met three years earlier at the Franche Cordée. On December 6, 1951, their daughter Chantal was born. This was also the year he began singing. From 1952, he wrote and composed his first songs, which he sang in the family circle and at various evenings in Brussels cabarets. He already demonstrated the lyrical power (in both the texts and his interpretation, still too tinged with scouting) that his family rejected. They unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade him from continuing down this path.
In 1953, he made a demo record, a 78 rpm, which he sent to Jacques Canetti in France, a talent scout, artistic director of Philips, and owner of the Parisian theater "Les Trois Baudets." On February 18, 1953, Jacques Canetti, impressed by the songs he had heard, called him in the middle of the night to meet him immediately. Brel left Brussels for Paris alone. His family did not cut off his support but allowed him to manage on his own, keeping a place for him in the family cardboard business. This emigration led to the birth of his second daughter, France, on July 12, 1953. He found himself in a small, uncomfortable room at the Hotel Stevens in Pigalle. Jacques Canetti supported him through thick and thin from 1953 to 1962.
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Early Struggles and Breakthroughs in Paris
He made his debut at the Trois Baudets in September 1953, opening for Mouloudji. Then, in 1954, he appeared in the show Ciné Massacre, which also featured Boris Vian and Jean Yanne, and saw the triumph of the humorist Fernand Raynaud. At the Trois Baudets, in Canetti's tours, whether he had success or not, Jacques Brel was guaranteed to sing every night, test his songs, and earn a living. He participated in the Knokke-le-Zoute festival, where he finished second to last. To earn money, he taught guitar to the dancer-acrobat Francesco "Cocky" Frediani, an Italian artist at the cabaret La Nouvelle Ève. Frediani accompanied him during his first appearance at the Olympia as a "curtain raiser." The working conditions were difficult: he had no dressing room and had to change behind the bar. After a performance, Bruno Coquatrix noticed him, congratulated him, and invited him to discuss a future performance, but Brel was not yet ready for a large venue.
Brel continued to face difficulties, encumbered by his long arms and awkward body. In 1954, during a tour of Jacques Hélian in Brussels, he met Hélian and played him one of his first songs, "Il peut pleuvoir." It was added to the orchestra's repertoire, unaware that behind his tight smile hid a great talent. In January 1955, Brel made his debut at the Ancienne Belgique, a famous Brussels concert hall, as the opening act for Bobbejaan Schoepen. Jacques Canetti continued to send him on tours where he appeared as the headline act for Philippe Clay, Dario Moreno, and Catherine Sauvage, who became his mistress.
Family Life and Growing Recognition
In 1955, he brought his wife and two daughters to France, and the family settled in Montreuil. This was the year of his first 33 rpm record. At the Trois Baudets, he met Georges Pasquier, who became his stage manager and best friend, to whom he dedicated the song "Jojo" in 1978. Still influenced by scouting and his Catholic education, he sang for Christian organizations. From 1954 to 1965, Canetti organized tours in France and abroad in which Brel was often programmed with artists such as Sidney Bechet, Catherine Sauvage, and Philippe Clay.
Musical Collaborations and Success
In 1956, he met the pianist François Rauber, who became his musical arranger and the orchestra that accompanied him throughout his singing career. That same year, his first major public success, "Quand on n'a que l'amour," was released. In 1957, eager to complete his musical studies at the conservatory, François Rauber gave up touring. He was replaced by another conservatory student, Gérard Jouannest, who composed the music for 35 of Brel's songs. Jouannest was his exclusive accompanist on stage, while Rauber, who returned to Brel after graduating, was his main orchestrator.
Gradually, Brel found his style and his audience, and finally achieved success at his galas. He never gave in to the tradition of encores, which he considered demagogic. In 1957, his second 33 rpm record received the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros, and in late 1958, the year his third daughter, Isabelle, was born, he achieved success at the Olympia as an opening act.
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Peak Years and Touring
The following year, he headlined at Bobino, where he created "Ne me quitte pas," written for the actress Suzanne Gabriello, and "La Valse à mille temps." From then on, tours followed one another at an infernal pace, with Brel sometimes giving more concerts than there were days in the year. In 1960, he bought a house between Monaco and Cap Martin, on the beach of Cabbé in the Golfe Bleu, which he occupied until 1970. His friends visited him there, including Leny Escudero and Serge Gainsbourg. It was there that he composed "La Fanette" and "Amsterdam."
In March 1962, he left the Philips record company for Barclay (with whom he would sign an exceptional thirty-year contract in 1972). On March 6, 1962, he recorded "Le Plat Pays," a tribute to Flanders. In October 1962, he created his music publishing house Arlequin, which became the Pouchenel publishing house six months later. His wife was the director.
Later Career and Retirement from the Stage
In 1966, at the height of his art, Jacques Brel released "Ces gens-là," a new album that, in addition to the title song, included several titles that became essential classics of his work: "Ces gens-là," "Jef," "La Chanson de Jacky," "Le Tango funèbre," "Fernand," and "Mathilde." That same year, at the age of 37, Jacques Brel decided to retire from the stage. However, he honored his contracts for more than a year and made his farewell appearance at the Olympia in October 1966.
Although he abandoned stage performances, Brel did not remain inactive. In the summer of 1967, he starred in his first feature film, André Cayatte's "Les Risques du métier," which was a public success. Then, on his sailboat, he began to sail. Two albums were released: "Jacques Brel 67," which included "La Chanson des vieux amants" and some titles created on stage the year of his farewell, including "Mon enfance" and "Le Cheval." In 1968, the album "J'arrive" was released, some of whose songs were filmed in studios or on television sets: "Vesoul," "L'Éclusier," "Je suis un soir d'été," and "Regarde bien petit."
In October 1968, in Brussels, at the Théâtre Royal de l'Opéra, la Monnaie, he created the French-language version of "L'Homme de la Mancha," playing the role of Don Quixote alongside Dario Moreno as Sancho Panza. The show was to be reprised in Paris in December, but Moreno died on December 1, 1968, at the age of 47 from a cerebral hemorrhage at Istanbul Airport, before his plane took off. Robert Manuel took over the role for the show presented in December in Paris.
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Film Career and International Recognition
In the early summer of 1969, Brel was "Mon oncle Benjamin" in Édouard Molinaro's film, for which he composed the music with François Rauber. He made several other films and directed two himself: "Franz" in 1971, sharing the bill with Barbara, and "Le Far West" in 1973, which was a failure. On the occasion of this release, Brel participated in Jacques Chancel's radio program, Radioscopie, at Cannes.
English translations of his songs were successfully received and recorded by David Bowie ("Amsterdam"), Scott Walker ("Amsterdam," "Mathilde"), Marc Almond ("Amsterdam" + "Jacky"), The Sensational Alex Harvey Band ("Next"), Terry Jacks ("Le Moribond"). "Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris" was an American musical comedy that was performed worldwide for several years. It included rhyming translations, assembled in 1968 by Mort Shuman, a friend of Brel.
Final Years and Death
In 1974, a heavy smoker, learning that he had cancer, he abandoned the show and left with his daughter France and Maddly Bamy, whom he met during the filming of Claude Lelouch's "L'aventure c'est l'aventure," aboard the Askoy, a sailboat he had just bought. But he was already ill. He had surgery for lung cancer. He decided to retire to the Marquesas Islands.
In 1976, he sold the Askoy to a young American couple, and Maddly Bamy bought him a Beechcraft Twin-Bonanza twin-engine plane registered F-ODBU and named Jojo on August 2, 1976, in memory of his old friend, Georges Pasquier, who had disappeared in 1974.
In 1977, despite his illness, he returned to Paris to record his last 33 rpm record, "Les Marquises," which was released on November 17. The title song, "Les Marquises," which closes the album, ends with the words "Veux-tu que je te dise / Gémir n'est pas de mise / Aux Marquises" ("Do you want me to tell you / Complaining is not appropriate / In the Marquesas").
Jacques Brel rests in the cemetery of Atuona, commune of Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands, not far from the tomb of Paul Gauguin. His funeral plaque was the source of a dispute between the Brel family and Maddly Bamy in 1999.
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