Lizzy Mercier Descloux

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Lizzy Mercier Descloux (born December 16, 1956 in Paris as Martine-Elisabeth Mercier Descloux , † April 20, 2004 in Saint-Florent , Corsica ) was a singer-songwriter , musician , actress , writer and painter .

Early years

Lizzy Mercier Descloux grew up in Lyon . She studied at the State Art School in Paris , where she met fellow student Michel Esteban . Together with Esteban she built up the record and fashion store Harry Cover (a corruption of haricots verts = green beans), which became a center of the early punk scene in Paris. In 1975, Esteban and Mercier Descloux traveled to New York , made contacts with punk, disco and new wave musicians and made friends a. a. with Patti Smith and Richard Hell . Smith wrote the foreword and illustrated Mercier Descloux's first book Desiderata , to which Hell also made some contributions.

In 1976, Mercier Descloux and Esteban moved into an apartment in SoHo that they shared with Patti Smith. The apartment quickly became a meeting point for the New York music and art scene. Mercier Descloux taught himself to play guitar and performed in SoHo galleries and clubs on the Lower East Side . She played together with DJ Banes (alias Michel Esteban) initially in the formation Rosa Yemen - influenced by Mark Cunninghams ' No Wave band Mars . Esteban had meanwhile founded the Ze Records label together with Michael Zilkha, an heir of the British retail group Mothercare . Rosa Yemen's six-track EP Rosa Yemen: Live In NYC July 1978 was also released there .

In 1979, the album Press Color was created in an improvised 10-day recording session together with DJ Banes and Erik Fitoussi from the French punk band Marie & Les Garçons . The LP contained u. a. Cover versions of the theme song from Mission Impossible and "Fire" by Arthur Brown . Both songs became secret hits in New York nightclubs, but the album sold poorly.

Middle years of life

Despite the moderate success of Press Color , Chris Blackwell , founder of the record label Island Records , became aware of Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Blackwell entered into a distribution partnership with Ze Records and financed the production of Lizzy Mercier Descloux's second album Mambo Nassau . The LP was recorded by Steven Stanley and Wally Badarou at Compass Point Studios in Nassau . On the record, Mercier Descloux also processed influences from African music for the first time , after she had dealt intensively with releases by the French label Ocora . Mambo Nassau is thus also the first approach a European musician has come to terms with the genre of world music (not yet so named at the time) .

However, sales in the US were disappointing and did not cover production costs. The response to Mambo Nassau was significantly better in Europe and Asia , and CBS signed Mercier Descloux for the European market. She initially released two singles ("Mister Soweto" and "Maita", the latter in French for the first time), but then set out on longer trips through Africa , interrupted only by a short stay in New York, where she and Arto Lindsay in a short film by Seth Tillett appeared. In 1984 she gave a concert in a club in Soweto and recorded her third album Mais où sont passées les gazelles? Together with South African artists, produced by her then partner Adam Kidron . on. (The LP was released untitled on the international market and was re-released in 2006 in a modified form as Zulu Rock .)

Back in Europe

In 1984 Mercier Descloux settled in France again. There the title song of their third album, "Mais où sont passées les gazelles?", Became a surprising summer hit and was awarded the renowned Bus d'Acier music prize. The album reached number 30 in the French charts, making it one of the first records of African music to be placed in a European charts - two years before Paul Simon released a similar album with Graceland .

With Kidron she produced her fourth album One for the Soul in Rio de Janeiro , which was heavily influenced by Brazilian music . Trumpeter Chet Baker can also be heard on five songs on the album . However, the LP was a commercial flop, as was the 1988 London album Suspense , produced by Mark Cunningham and John Brand.

Mercier Descloux then largely withdrew from the music business and settled in the Caribbean, where she devoted herself primarily to painting. In 1995 she returned to New York for a performance project with Bill Laswell . The project was not published, but resulted in Laswell's album Hashisheen - The End Of The Law (1999), on which Mercier Descloux interpreted the piece "Morning High" (based on a poem by Arthur Rimbaud ) together with Patti Smith .

Around 2000, Mercier Descloux returned to France to settle permanently in Corsica . In 2003 she was diagnosed with cancer and in 2004 Mercier Descloux died in her home town of Saint-Florent .

Discography

Albums

  • 1979 - Press Color - ZE Records
  • 1981 - Mambo Nassau - ZE Records / Island Records
  • 1984 - Mais où sont passées les gazelles? - CBS (Europe), ZE Records (USA) (released outside France without a title, in English-speaking countries in a version with a few other songs. Released in 2006 in the USA with all English and French songs as Zulu Rock ).
  • 1986 - One For The Soul - Polydor
  • 1988 Suspense Polydor
  • 2006 - Best Off - Ze Records ( Sampler )

Singles & EPs

  • 1978 - "Rosa Yemen - Live In NYC July 1978" - ZE Records (2003 reissue on CD)
  • 1979 - "Fire" - ZE Records
  • 1979 - "Mission impossible" - ZE Records / EMI
  • 1982 - "Mister Soweto" / "Don't you try to stop me" - CBS / Columbia
  • 1983 - "Maita" - ZE records / CBS
  • 1984 - "Mais où sont passées les gazelles?" - CBS
  • 1984 - "Wakwazulu Kwezizulu Rock" - CBS
  • 1986 - "Calypso Moguls" - Polydor

Lizzy Mercier Descloux on albums by other artists

  • 1982 - "Tokyo-Paris-London-NY" - Maxi 12 "- Columbia (contains" Les Baisers d'Amant ", B-side of" Maita ")
  • 1992 - Pop en stock - WMD (contains "Five Troubles Mambo" by Mambo Nassau )
  • 1994 - Frenchy but chic - Virgin (contains "Fire" by Press Color )
  • 1999 - Bill Laswell, Hashisheen - The End Of The Law - SubRosa (contains "Morning High", duet with Patti Smith)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Punk Movement: Impressions from the 1970s (French)
  2. ↑ Michel Esteban's discography

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mercier Descloux, Lizzy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mercier Descloux, Martine-Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French singer-songwriter, actress, writer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 2004
Place of death Saint-Florent , Corsica