Claude Francois
b. 4 February 1942, Suez, Egypt, d. 11 March 1978. He inherited musical skills from his parents who, with worsening political antagonism in the East, returned him to France where, on leaving school, he drummed in a Monte Carlo jazz combo before ambition drove him to Paris where, demonstrating the Twist, Mashed Potato and like dance crazes in the Caramel Club, he was noticed by record company talent scouts. Steve Lawrence's Girls Girls Girls was, in 1961, the first of many swift translations of US hits for home consumers by Francois. His strategy was best exemplified by a version of If I Had A Hammer in the shops a mere week after Trini Lopez's 1963 original. More idiosyncratic smashes included Marche Tout Troit and an up-tempo revival of Noël Coward's Poor Little Rich Girl. Adored as Clo-Clo by ‘teenagers, Francois next addressed himself to their parents with a greater proportion of largely self-composed ballads such as J'Y Pense Et Puis J'Oublie, J'Attendrai and Qu'Est-Ce Que Tu Deviens. Though 1976's Tears 0n The Telephone inched into Britain's Top 40, his deepest penetration into markets beyond French regions had been by proxy with the reflective Comme D'Habitude—written with Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibaut—which, with English lyrics by Paul Anka, was covered (as My Way) by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra and the Sex Pistols. While this syndication enabled Francois to purchase a mansion near Fontainbleau, his private life was marred by divorce and maladies that included chronic insomnia. His death (by electrocution) on 11 March 1978 was mourned in microcosm as passionately as that of Elvis Presley—another of the many who recorded My Way.