Five years after his passing, a discreet event to match his shy personality, here is the ultimate tribute to Guy Béart, bringing together an intergenerational anthology of French chanson. Less celebrated than the sacred monsters Brel, Brassens, Piaf, and Barbara, Béart accompanied the daily toil of thousands of people, often without them even really knowing who he was, so much so that his great texts surreptitiously illuminated their ordinary lives.
It was at the insistence of another giant, Charles Aznavour, with Béart’s two daughters, Ève (a jewellery designer) and Emmanuelle (the sublime icon of French cinema, of course), that this double album of 20 “free versions” was born.
It’s all a prelude to a full-length book, scheduled for publication in September 2020.
While he wrote some biting songs (“Les grands principes”) and political ones too (“Couleurs vous êtes des larmes”, covered beautifully here by Ismaël Lo), it’s above all love and break-up songs that we find on this very lovely album, which brings a certain lustre back to tunes that might have seemed outdated.
The unavoidable “Il n’y a plus d’après” comes to mind, a number originally intended for Aznavour to cover. He passed away four days too early to record it, and Vianney has taken it up with panache. This is “grandpa Guy as a young guy”, to borrow the expression from Emmanuelle Béart’s son, who doubtless imagined a triumphant collective shyness.
Carla Bruni does a good job with “C’est après que ça passe”, while Souchon (“Seine va”) and Voulzy (“Il fait toujours beau quelque part”) literally make their tracks their own.
Among the highlights are the sublime cover of “Ceux qui s’aiment” by the delicate Pomme, Catherine Ringer’s rich and assured voice on “Les souliers (… dans la neige)”, and, perhaps because it’s probably his last wink, the voice of the late Christophe who tinkers with a very ethereal “Vous (c’est vous)”.
Dutronc’s son and Emmanuelle Béart offer a very sympathetic duet at the beginning with “Qu’on est bien”, a song adapted to the political sensibilities of the day, leaving Vincent Delerme to wield his weary voice on “Bal chez Temporel”. The rapper Akhenaton pleasantly surprises with “Qui sommes-nous?” “L’eau vive”, which candidly reflects on the children leaving the nest from a parent’s point of view, is of course there, with the voice of Yaël Naïm bolstered by a chorus and orchestration that evoke urgency, just as with “Frantz (viens, mon cher Frantz)”, a song about a dying man,performed as a duet by Julien Clerc and (once again) Emmanuelle Béart. Let’s also note the presence of Raphaël (“Poste restante”) and Maxime Le Forestier (“De la lune qui se souvient”) on this delightful album.
Born in Cairo and raised in Lebanon, to which he remained very attached, Guy Béart, quickly spotted by Brassens, produced by Vian and soon enough a friend of Aragon, Pompidou and Georges Marchais, once said that “writing melodies means extending your hand from generation to generation”.
His daughters have contributed admirably here to proving him right.
