Eddy Mitchell

Eddy Mitchell (2014)

Eddy Mitchell (born July 3, 1942 in Paris ), real name Claude Moine , is a French singer , text writer , television presenter and actor . His musical career began in 1960 as the front man of the rock 'n' roll band Les Chaussettes Noires , but only a year later he decided to pursue a solo career in which he was mainly successful with rock, chansons and country music . From the second half of the 1970s, his style developed more in the direction of crooning .

During his decades-long career as a singer, he wrote the majority of his songs himself. He also did many translations of songs from the United States into French , especially in the rock and country styles , including Leiber / Stoller hits like Baby, I don't care or Charlie Brown in his early career years . The authorship of his texts was always under his real name. For his own chansons, he mainly worked with the composer Pierre Papadiamandis . His second artistic mainstay, acting, developed particularly from the 1980s. Mitchell remained musically active as a singer and actor well into the 21st century.

Life and career history

Claude Moine began training as a banker at Crédit Lyonnais in the late 1950s ; in his spare time he sang with the Créteiler rock 'n' roll band Les Cinq Rocks . In December 1960 talked and played the musician with Eddie Barclay ago, the then first EP with titles such as Be Bop A Lula and a French-language version of You Talk Too Much on his Barclay - label brought out. Her second, musically more popular single Daniela was a surprisingly great financial success with around 800,000 copies sold. This led to the fact that they were engaged in February 1961 for the 1st International Rock Festival in the Palais Omnisports of Paris-Bercy, where they appeared alongside greats such as Emile Ford and the Checkmates , Little Tony , Bobby Rydell and Johnny Halliday . The hugely popular band even released a single with Maurice Chevalier (Le Twist du canotier) ; the pianist Georges Arvanitas also supported her in some of her studio sessions. This year, the group renamed itself Les Chaussettes Noires (The Black Socks) after Barclay had signed a corresponding advertising contract with a northern French stocking manufacturer . Accordingly, the cover of their LP 100% Rock showed a clothesline with five socks, each of which has a member of the band. Also from 1961 the band members had to do their military service one after another, which did not completely prevent joint appearances and further recordings, but made them more difficult. That is why Claude Moine began at this time to occasionally appear solo under the pseudonym Eddy Mitchell and to publish records. That summer he married his girlfriend Françoise Lavit.

In 1963 Eddy Mitchell separated from the Chaussettes Noires, which then broke up. In the summer of this year his first two solo singles were released and - after his discharge from the army in August - also two long-playing records, entitled Voici Eddy, c'est le soldat Mitchell and Eddy, respectively, in London , on which he and the guitarist Big Jim Sullivan was making music. In the following years he also produced two LPs a year. Early in his career, the tall singer was nicknamed Schmoll, the French corruption of the English small (klein), which also appears in the title of one of his LPs from 1968 (7 Colts pour Schmoll) . With the LP Perspective 66 released in 1965 , he decided not to produce mainly cover versions , but to write his own songs. This also changed his musical style: chansons such as the worn Alice from 1967 represent this change. At the end of the 1960s, however, his records were selling increasingly poorly; Mitchell was considered "yesterday's singer". But from the middle of the following decade he managed to return to the top ten of the French charts with several singles, including titles such as La Dernière Séance and Sur la route de Memphis , and in 1981 again a number one success with Couleur menthe a l ' eau . This title, in which a woman with peppermint syrup green make-up is described, who acts like a film star in public, is reminiscent of the text of the Ruut-wieß-blau querjestriefte woman that BAP had released a year earlier on her LP Affjetaut . From the 1970s onwards, Mitchell traveled to the USA again and again, where a number of his long-playing records were recorded.
Privately, he and his wife Françoise, with whom he has two children, divorced in 1979. In 1980 Eddy Mitchell married Muriel Bailleul; from this marriage he has a daughter. In 1983, together with Dominique Besnehard, he became the godfather of Johnny Halliday's daughter Laura Smet .

Eddy Mitchell 2010 on a concert stage in Lyon

From the 1980s onwards, cinema increasingly became the focus of his artistic work. Mitchell was active both as an actor and in the role of film presenter on television. (see below) . Nevertheless, he continued to publish records on a regular basis - both solo and with Serge Gainsbourg  , for example - and performed at concerts , such as in 1993 on the occasion of Johnny Halliday's 50th birthday in Parc des Princes or in 1997 at the Paléo Festival in Nyon , Switzerland . The 1990s were the decade in which he received many awards for his various activities, both as a singer (four music Victors ) and as an actor (a César ). In general, he took a prominent position among the acting singers in France at this time. In 2008 and 2014 he also took on a stage role in two performances at the Théâtre de la Madeleine and the Théâtre de Paris , both under the direction of Stéphane Hillel .

In 2012 his autobiography Il faut rentrer maintenant (“Now it's time to resign”) was published. Eddy Mitchell gave his official farewell concert at the Olympia in 2011 , but since then he has already released two more LPs, which brings him to a total of 36 solo albums, not counting compilations and guest appearances. In 2011 he sang on a Hommage LP (Bécaud, et maintenant) , which appeared on the tenth anniversary of Gilbert Bécaud's death , whose 1955 success Je t'appartiens . In 2014 and 2017, he also teamed up with Johnny Hallyday and Jacques Dutronc . The three singers, who have been active since the 1960s , self-ironically called themselves Les Vieilles Canailles (The Old Villains) during their television and concert appearances, including at the Palais Omnisports , and under this name they also released an album with their greatest successes. Mitchell's great musical range is also evident in his interpretation of an early modern song such as Plaisir d'amour . His last film to date was also released in 2018.

Record successes

Records that made it to the top of the French sales charts were the singles Toujours un coin qui me rappelle ( 1965 ) and Couleur menthe a l'eau ( 1981 ) as well as the long-playing record Come Back in 2010 . For Fabien Lecœuvre, music journalist and author of numerous books on French chanson, three songs mark the musical cornerstones of Eddy Mitchell's decades-long career: Daniela from 1961, still with the Chaussettes Noires, La dernière séance from 1977 and Lèche-bottes Blues from 1989. Der The latter title, in German for example salivary blues , dealt in drastic terms with the attitude of some journalistic " court reporters " and was not only in the French top 50 for weeks at the turn of the year 1989/1990, but also repeatedly led to reactions in the so attacked the media.

Eddy Mitchell has won one of the Music Victors , the French equivalent of the Grammy Awards , several times , three times in the Concert of the Year category (1992, 1995 and 2011) and twice for Album of the Year (1994 for Rio Grande , 1997 for Mr. Eddy ).

Outside of the French-speaking world, he, who is considered one of the three "pioneers of French rock" - the other two are Johnny Halliday and Dick Rivers  - never achieved any notable sales of his records, not even in the major markets in the USA and Great Britain and Germany.

Discography

Studio albums

With Les 5 Rocks

• 1996: Les 5 Rocks (recorded in 1960)

With Les Chaussettes noires

• 1961: 100% rock
• 1961: Rock'n'Twist
• 1962: Le 2 000 000e disque des Chaussettes noires
• 1962: Comment réussir en amour (soundtrack)
• 1963: Chaussettes Noires Party

Solo albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		FR	BE W	CH
1974	Rocking in Nashville	FR193 gold (1 week)FR	-	-	Chart entry in FR only in 2014
1996	Mr. Eddy	FR2 platinum (41 weeks)FR	BE W9 (14 weeks) BE W	-
1999	Les nouvelles aventures d'Eddy Mitchell	FR2 platinum (39 weeks)FR	BE W22 (6 weeks) BE W	-
2000	Les nouvelles aventures d'Eddy: Nouvelle Orléans	FR42 (1 week) FR	-	-
2003	Frenchy	FR2 × 2 Double gold (46 weeks)FR	BE W5 (10 weeks) BE W	CH33 (8 weeks) CH
2006	Jambalaya	FR2 gold (55 weeks)FR	BE W11 (24 weeks) BE W	CH43 (4 weeks) CH
2009	Grand écran	FR2 platinum (58 weeks)FR	BE W14 (24 weeks) BE W	CH66 (2 weeks) CH
2010	Come back	FR1 platinum (43 weeks)FR	BE W6 (21 weeks) BE W	CH49 (3 weeks) CH
2013	Hero	FR5 (28 weeks) FR	BE W10 (19 weeks) BE W	CH67 (2 weeks) CH
2015	Big Band	FR6th platinum (33 weeks)FR	BE W7 (26 weeks) BE W	CH15 (3 weeks) CH
2017	La même tribu - Volume 1	FR4th platinum (78 weeks)FR	BE W16 (20 weeks) BE W	CH46 (6 weeks) CH
2018	La même tribu - Volume 2	FR3 platinum (6 weeks)FR	BE W8 (25 weeks) BE W	CH28 (4 weeks) CH

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More studio albums

• 1963: Voici Eddy ... c'était le soldat Mitchell
• 1963: Eddy in London
• 1964: Panorama
• 1964: Toute la ville en parle ... Eddy est formidable
• 1965: You rock 'n' roll au rhythm 'n' blues
• 1966: Perspective 66
• 1966: Seul
• 1967: De Londres à Memphis
• 1968: Sept Colts pour Schmoll
• 1969: Mitchellville
• 1971: Rock n'Roll
• 1972: Zig-zag
• 1972: Dieu bénisse le rock'n'roll
• 1974: Electric ketchup
• 1975: Made in USA (FR:gold)
• 1976: Sur la route de Memphis (FR:gold)
• 1977: La Dernière Séance (FR:gold)
• 1978: Après minuit
• 1979: C'est bien fait (FR:gold)
• 1980: Happy Birthday (FR:gold)
• 1982: Le Cimetière des éléphants (FR:gold)
• 1984: Fan Album
• 1984: Racines (FR:gold)
• 1986: Eddy Paris Mitchell
• 1987: Mitchell
• 1989: Ici Londres
• 1993: Rio Grande (FR:platinum)

Live albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		FR	BE W	CH
1997	Mr. Eddy à Bercy 97	FR39 gold (8 weeks)FR	BE W9 (14 weeks) BE W	-
2001	Live 2000	FR16 gold (22 weeks)FR	BE W31 (3 weeks) BE W	-
2004	Frenchy tour	FR76 (8 weeks) FR	-	-
2007	Jambalaya tour	FR60 (8 weeks) FR	-	-
2011	Ma dernière séance	FR13 (37 weeks) FR	BE W35 (13 weeks) BE W	-
2016	Big Band - Palais des Sports 2016	FR45 (8 weeks) FR	BE W54 (17 weeks) BE W	-
2019	Les vieilles canailles - L'album live	FR1 × 2 Double platinum (21 weeks)FR	BE W1 (19 weeks) BE W	CH4 (10 weeks) CH	with Johnny Hallyday & Jacques Dutronc

More live albums

• 1994: Casino De Paris 1990 (FR:gold)

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		FR	BE W	CH
1998	Eddy lover	-	BE W15 (9 weeks) BE W	-
	Eddy Rocker	-	BE W37 (1 week) BE W	-
2010	L'essentiel des album studio	-	BE W91 (2 weeks) BE W	-
2014	Les 50 plus belles chansons	-	BE W189 (1 week) BE W	-
	Best of des legends yéyés	-	BE W67 (7 weeks) BE W	-	with Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan , Richard Anthony & Dick Rivers
	Les vieilles canailles - Les Best Of Dutronc / Hallyday / Mitchell	FR9 (19 weeks) FR	BE W20 (53 weeks) BE W	CH47 (3 weeks) CH	with Johnny Hallyday & Jacques Dutronc chart entry in CH only in 2017
2015	Country - Part 1	FR114 (1 week) FR	-	-	with Johnny Hallyday
	Le best of	FR139 (2 weeks) FR	-	-
2018	Country - Part 1	FR106 (4 weeks) FR	BE W32 (12 weeks) BE W	-

More compilations

• 1981: Eddy Mitchell (FR:gold)
• 1992: Tout Eddy ou presque (Coffret) (FR:× 2Double gold )
• 1994: Best of (FR:platinum)
• 2004: Best of Eddy Mitchell (FR:gold)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks	[↑]: treated together with the previous entry; [←]: placed in both charts
		FR	BE F	BE W
1962	Mais reviens-moi Voici Eddy ... c'était le soldat Mitchell	-	BE F39 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1963	Be bop a lula 63	-	BE F40 (12 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Quand une fille me plaît Voici Eddy ... c'était le soldat Mitchell	-	BE F33 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Je reviendrai Voici Eddy ... c'était le soldat Mitchell	-	BE F47 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1964	Sentimental Eddy in London	-	BE F44 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Ma maîtresse d'école	-	BE F40 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Pas de chance panorama	-	BE F43 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Repose Beethoven Panorama	-	BE F43 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Toujours un coin qui me rappelle Toute la ville en parle ... Eddy est formidable	-	BE F3 (28 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1965	J'ai perdu mon amour Toute la ville en parle ... Eddy est formidable	-	BE F19 (16 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Personne au monde You rock 'n' roll au rhythm 'n' blues	-	BE F48 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Rien qu'un seul mot Perspective 66	-	BE F48 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1966	Et s'il n'en reste qu'un Perspective 66	-	BE F28 (16 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	fortissimo	-	BE F45 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	J'ai oublié de l'oublier Seul	-	BE F43 (3 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Seul Seul	-	BE F36 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1967	Bye bye prêcheur De Londres à Memphis	-	BE F31 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Alice De Londres à Memphis	-	BE F8 (20 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Le debut de la fin De Londres à Memphis	-	BE F36 (5 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1968	Je n'aime que toi	-	BE F14 (15 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Sunny Sept Colts pour pout	-	BE F41 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1969	Il a suffi d'une fille	-	BE F35 (5 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Miss Caroline Mitchellville	-	BE F41 (3 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1970	Arizona	-	BE F37 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1971	C'est facile	-	BE F33 (6 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1972	En revenant vers toi Zig-zag	-	BE F48 (1 week) BE F[BE W : ←]
1975	C'est la vie mon chéri	-	BE F27 (7 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	C'est un rocker	-	BE F36 (4 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Bye, bye, Johnny B. Good	-	BE F36 (3 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1976	Je vais craquer bientôt Made in USA	-	BE F22 (7 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	Pas de boogie woogie	-	BE F16 (10 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1977	Sur la route de Memphis Sur la route de Memphis	-	BE F18 (9 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	La fille du motel Sur la route de Memphis	-	BE F18 (8 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
	La dernière séance La dernière séance	-	BE F15 (6 weeks) BE F[BE W : ←]
1984	Comme quand j'étais môme	FR45 (1 week) FR	-	-
1989	Lèche-bottes blues Ici Londres	FR46 (5 weeks) FR	-	-
1993	Rio Grande Rio Grande	FR43 (6 weeks) FR	-	-
1996	Un portrait de Norman Rockwell Mr. Eddy	FR47 (1 week) FR	-	-
1999	Ton homme de paille Les nouvelles aventures d'Eddy Mitchell	FR86 (4 weeks) FR	-	-
2000	J'aime pas les gens heureux Les nouvelles aventures d'Eddy Mitchell	FR73 (9 weeks) FR	-	-
	Décrocher les étoiles Les nouvelles aventures d'Eddy Mitchell	FR80 (10 weeks) FR	-	-
2003	Sur la route 66 Frenchy	FR64 (7 weeks) FR	-	-
	J'aime les interdits	FR88 (1 week) FR	-	-
2013	Les vrais héros Héros	FR193 (1 week) FR	-	-
2010	L'esprit grande prairie	-	-	BE W28 (2 weeks) BE W

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More singles

• 1980: Couleur Menthe a l'eau (FR:gold)

Awards for music sales

Platinum record

•  France
  • 2003: for the video album Live 2000
  • 2004: for the video album Frenchy Tour
  • 2008: for the video album Jambalaya Tour

3 × platinum record

•  France
  • 2019: for the video album Les Vieilles Canailles: L'Album Live

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
France (SNEP)	18 × gold18th	17 × platinum17th	4,180,000	infodisc.fr snepmusique.com
All in all	18 × gold18th	17 × platinum17th

As an actor

As early as the early 1960s, Eddy Mitchell had played a few supporting roles in movies . But it was not until 1980 that he devoted himself to this activity more intensively, becoming known to an audience beyond the French-speaking world in Der Saustall (1980, in German 1982) . His filmography includes almost 40 roles, the last one in 2018 in Les Vieux Fourneaux alongside Pierre Richard . In Death to the Referee by Jean-Pierre Mocky (1983) he played a leading role as well as in Frankenstein 90 by Alain Jessua . He had other film roles for example in At Midnight (1986) by Bertrand Tavernier , Bis ans Ende der Welt by Wim Wenders (1991), American Cuisine (1998), Tanguy - Der Nesthocker (2001) by Étienne Chatiliez , Les clefs de bagnole (2003 ), Un printemps à Paris (2006) by Jacques Bral , Mademoiselle Populaire (2012) or Salaud, on t'aime (2014) by Claude Lelouch . In addition, he also acted in ten television films .

He received the César film award in 1996 for the best supporting role as Gérard Thulliez in the comedy Le bonheur est dans le pré . In addition, he was also nominated in 1982 for best supporting role in Der Saustall .

Other activities and awards

Between January 1982 and December 1998 Eddy Mitchell presented over 190 episodes of the television series La Dernière Séance on France 3 . This monthly series was named after one of his own songs. It showed films of all genres from the “golden era of the great US studios”.

In 1986, the then Minister of Culture, Jack Lang , awarded him the award of Knight des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Literature). From 1989 to 1995 he performed several times as part of the Les Enfoirés artist group at benefit concerts for the Les Restos du Cœur organization . And in 2007 he was awarded the SACEM Grand Prix for his life's work in the category “French Chanson (composer and singer)” .

literature

• Pierre Saka: 50 ans de chanson française. France Loisirs, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-7242-5790-1
• Gilles Verlant: L'Odyssée de la Chanson française. Ed. Hors Collection, Paris 2006, ISBN 978-2-2580-7087-5

Web links

• Official website of the artist
• Eddy Mitchell at Allmusic (English)

Notes and evidence

1. ↑ After Fabien Lecœuvre: 1001 histoires secrètes de chansons. Ed. du Rocher, Monaco 2017, ISBN 978-2-2680-9672-8 , p. 95, the band had the English-language name The Five Rocks .
2. ↑ Fabien Lecœuvre: 1001 histoires secrètes de chansons. Ed. du Rocher, Monaco 2017, ISBN 978-2-2680-9672-8 , p. 96
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Gilles Verlant, L'Odyssée de la Chanson française, 2006, p. 96
4. ↑ Pierre Saka, 50 ans de chanson française, 1994, p. 29
5. ↑ Jérôme Pintoux: Les chanteurs français des années 60. Du côté de chez les yéyés et sur la Rive Gauche. Camion Blanc, Rosières-en-Haye 2015, ISBN 978-2-35779-778-9 , p. 178
6. ↑ Pierre Saka, 50 ans de chanson française, 1994, p. 36
7. ↑ Also Johnny Hallyday , Eddy Mitchell called his "authentic friend since the earliest days," called him Schmoll - Johnny Hallyday: Destroy. Autobiography. Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine 1999, ISBN 978-2-7499-3633-8 , pp. 27 and 31.
8. ↑ Pierre Saka, 50 ans de chanson française, 1994, p. 69
9. ↑ ^{a b} Gilles Verlant, L'Odyssée de la Chanson française, 2006, p. 97
10. ↑ Jérôme Pintoux: Les chanteurs français des années 60. Du côté de chez les yéyés et sur la Rive Gauche. Camion Blanc, Rosières-en-Haye 2015, ISBN 978-2-35779-778-9 , p. 206 f.
11. ↑ Pierre Saka, 50 ans de chanson française, 1994, p. 96
12. ↑ Eddy Mitchell, Didier Varrod (co-author): Il faut maintenant rentrer. Éds. de la Martinière, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-27578-2881-6
13. ↑ Fabien Lecœuvre: 1001 histoires secrètes de chansons. Ed. du Rocher, Monaco 2017, ISBN 978-2-2680-9672-8 , pp. 95 f., 260 and especially 333
14. ↑ The parallels in Mitchell and Rivers' careers are striking. Both began in the early 1960s as the front man of a rock 'n' roll band popular in France, from which both separated early to pursue a successful solo career under an English-speaking stage name, both later turned to acting and with Rivers like at Mitchell, her career lasted well into her old age.
15. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chart sources: FR BEW CH