Françoise Hardy
‘Françoise was a confirmed Anglophile who had wanted to record in Britain, with British arrangers, as soon as she became famous’, Bob Stanley writes in the liner notes of ‘Midnight Blues’, a compilation of Hardy’s finest English songs, recorded between 1968 and 1972. I’m not a real fan of Fran’s English songs. It’s the accent, it’s the fact that the translated songs were better in their original form. I like her better in Italian (Spotify-link), but, granted, there are some nice tunes. As is always the case with Ace, the liner-notes are fine, it sounds great and the photos are carefully chosen. One of the things St.Etienne’s Bob Stanley can’t stop fussing about, is how thin and beautiful Hardy was back in the day. ‘In England, it was certainly my physique which pleasured people’, Hardy is quoted. Producer Tony Cox, who tried to set up a collaboration between Nick Drake and Hardy (it didn’t work) says: ‘We’d go out for dinner and every head would turn.’ A part from All Over the World, no single or English album was a bona fide hit in Britain. But she did work with several interesting arrangers and musicians, like Fairport Convention’s Richard Thompson and members of folkband Fatheringay. Here’s two tracks from the compilation:
Françoise Hardy – Midnight Blues
Françoise Hardy – Let My Name Be Sorrow
Wow – Nick Drake and Françoise Hardy together. What a dream combination. Shame it didn’t happy.
Midnight blues is reuploaded, now its fine
oooooooooh! this looks great!
midnight blue not working though 🙁
Thx allison, it should be ok now
I think there’s a problem with the “Midnight Blue” track.
Great anecdote!
A small note regarding Françoise Hardy`s body/physique: In the 60s Hardy was also very famous in Germany, where she had to record a lot of her songs in german (and with different arrangements). She told me once in an interview, I did with her in Paris (around 1990), that she had to work at that time with german tv producer legend Truck Branss, which she loved to work with. Beside one fact: Branss asked her to size up a little bit here small breasts with some push up stuff. For his taste she hadn`t had enough and he thought for the german tv she need a little bit more…She refused, but she laughed in the interview thinking about that…:)