Jacques Brel Is Alive & Well & Living In Paris
Original CastJacques Brel (1929–78) was a Belgian who, after moving the bohemian dives of Paris, became accepted as one of France's leading singer-songwriters. Brel's forte, however, was a cynical but poetic survey of the hopes, fears and futility of the human condition expressed with a mocking wit—love, war and death being favourite themes. The result — a dark, nihilistic but powerful view of life as a desperate affair — was a kind of Leonard Cohen meets Brecht & Weill.
Brel was "discovered" by songwriter Mort Shuman who, with American poet Eric Blau, translated Brel's songs and presented 26 of them as an off-Broadway musical which ran for nearly four years in the late '60s. Ever since, Brel's songs have been a source of fascination for the morbid fringe of the rock fraternity: Alex Harvey recorded Next (a miserable tale of lost virginity in an Army brothel), David Bowie sang Amsterdam and My Death, while Scott Walker cut a whole LP of Brel songs and incurred an early Radio One ban with Jackie.
This double album, then, is the original cast recording of that stage show—not to be confused with the 1974 film soundtrack of the same name, although they share most of the songs and the two principal performers, Shuman and the wonderful Elly Stone. This set loses seven songs compared to the film but gains three others (including, happily, My Death and You Are Not Alone, plus Fanette).
Elly Stone remains the outstanding performer by a mile. To hear her beautifully clear voice and entrancing delivery of the ironies of Sons Of… or the fears aroused by Old Folks("Their houses all smell of time, of old photographs and an old fashioned song/You may live in town but you live far away when you've lived too long") is to experience a timely reminder of the emotive power of a few well chosen words, a clutch of musical notes and the human voice in the hands of the gifted.
A major work, of undiminished power.
- Ian Cranna
(Issue #7)(April 1987)