Big Soul

Guestpost! Radio Oh la la’s Natasha on French-loved Californians Big Soul:

On a jammed packed dance floor, a DJ from Paris turns around to me with a smirk and says, “Can you throw on some big guitar number? I have something that needs that first.” I whip out Niagara’s ‘J’ai Vu’, a low tempo wall-to-wall guitar ditty that all the francophones sing along to while they’re dancing. Then he lets it rip: Big Soul’s ‘Le Brio (Branchez la guitare)’.

Even though they only have two songs in French, Big Soul is a Californian boy-boy-girl band that is better known in France, where they got their first record deal. Some French guy in California saw their show and picked up a CD to bring home. Then one day a Paris DJ played one of their English songs, ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ on a dance floor and voilà, you’re la bombe in Paris.

Both ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ and ‘Le Brio’ are from 1995, while ‘La Belle et la Bête’ (French for ‘Beauty and the Beast’) is from 2002. And the lovely blond, bass-bearing Caroline Wampole has that American girl singing in French quality that you’ve come to expect from this blog.

Big Soul – Le Brio (Branchez la guitare)
Big Soul – La Belle et la Bête