Soldier louis
Soldat Louis is a French music group from the Breton port city of Lorient . Stylistically, it is assigned to folk rock as well as Breton or Celtic rock , for which the interaction of electrically amplified ( electric guitar , electric bass , keyboards , plus drums ) with traditional acoustic instruments such as binioù bras , uilleann pipes , Cornemuse , bombarde and other flutes, banjo and guitar is typical.
However, especially in the early years of her career, a number of so-called drinking and sea shanties shaped her image, which is still expressed in the band's logo in 2020 .
history
Soldier Louis was created in the mid-1980s; In August 1987 the still almost unknown band was obliged at very short notice by the program planners of the Festival Interceltique de Lorient to perform as the opening act for the Pogues . As a result of this performance, not only did the circle of their followers suddenly expand, but it also led to Sony Music offering them a recording contract, whereupon their first album , titled Première Bordée , was released the following year (see the discography below) . The song Du rhum, des femmes , which was released as a single , is a song about fishermen who express their disappointment about the absence of alcohol and women on the high seas, regardless of the fact that some felt the album cover to be misogynistic Hit that many sang along loudly at concerts. The single sold over 750,000 copies. She entered the French top 50 in December 1988, where she stayed for 25 weeks, stayed in the top 10 for twelve weeks and in the spring of 1989 reached rank 3 as the highest position. This remained Soldier Louis' greatest commercial success. Only one single ( Martiniquaises , twelve top 50 weeks in autumn 1989, highest rating at 33rd place) and two LPs ( Escale sur la planète and Sales gosses , Top 200) made it into the charts .
The popularity of the band, especially in their homeland in Brittany, which is also evident in their longevity, is based, among other things, on the musical and thematic diversity of their songs. This ranges from “clear borrowings from the Pogues” to The Wild Rover and the Breton national anthem , sometimes loud and carefree, and sometimes thoughtful - as in Femmes de légende , for example , a homage to the difficult life of sailors' wives. Over the decades Soldier Louis has made numerous tours, including through Ireland , and has appeared at local Festoù-noz as well as at all smaller and larger music festivals, especially in Brittany. The Festival Interceltique in Lorient, where their career began, became almost something of their second home, where they last performed in 2019. However , the band had to wait until 2012 for their first appearance at the Paris Olympia .
Up to and including 1999, the group published their music on various Sony Music labels , then in 2002 and 2003 with EMI and 2006 with Atlantic . Coop Breizh has been selling its records since 2009 , which, along with those by Denez Prigent , Gilles Servat , Red Cardell and Les Ramoneurs de menhirs, are among the particularly well-selling independent companies that are consciously committed to Breton culture .
In 2010 soldier Louis composed a club anthem on behalf of FC Lorient for its 90th anniversary. The association justified this collaboration with the words that the musicians represented a link between modernity and anchoring in their home environment; this corresponds exactly to the profile of the club. The song “Debout, Lorient!” (In German about “Auf geht's, Lorient”) has since been sung by some of the football fans in the stands of the Stade du Moustoir .
Staffing
During the three and a half decades of Soldat Louis's existence, two musicians have been part of the formation practically throughout: Renaud Detressan alias Gary Wicknam, a grandson of the chansonnier Théodore Botrel , who already released some records as a soloist in the early 1980s - albeit only moderately successfully and Serge Danet, whom his childhood friends called Soldier Louis. Detressan (lyrics) and Danet (music) are also the authors of most of the group's songs. Otherwise there were frequent personnel changes among the band members during this long period; this also contributed to the fact that several appearances - spontaneous or planned, at individual concerts as well as at festivals and tours - included additional guest musicians.
Also on their LP VIP: Very Intimes Poteaux (“Very familiar Kumpel”), released in 2010, musicians who are friends with Soldat Louis sing and play. Hugues Aufray , Patrick Verbeke , Antoine , Beverly Jo Scott , Francis Cabrel , Clarisse Lavanant , Murray Head , Dan Ar Braz , Renaud , Francis Lalanne and Michael Jones interpret songs from the band's repertoire , and on some pieces Soldat Louis also accompany his colleagues.
The current seven-person line-up (2019) consists of Serge Danet (lead guitar, banjo, vocals), Renaud Detressan (guitar, background vocals), Michel Banuls (acoustic and electric guitar, background vocals), Anthony Masselin (cornemuse, uilleann pipes, flute ), Hervé Le Guillou (electric bass), Jean-Paul Barrière (keyboards, background vocals) and Christophe Sonnic (drums). At the end of the 1990s, Masselin belonged to the Bagad de Lann-Bihoué , one of the most traditional and often award-winning marching bands in Brittany. Other temporary band members such as Loïc Taillebrest and Bruno Le Rouzic also had a comparable musical background.
Discography
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Between 1988 and 1999 Soldat Louis also released a total of 18 singles. Her best-known songs that appeared on it include Du rhum, des femmes , Martiniquaises and the FCL club anthem Pavillon noir , C'est un pays , Femmes de légende , Menestrel and Tirer des caisses .
Web links
- Official page of the group on Facebook
- Discography at Discogs
Notes and evidence
- ↑ Alain Cabon: Le Festival Interceltique de Lorient. Quarante ans au cœur du monde celte. Ed. Ouest-France, Rennes 2010, ISBN 978-2-7373-5119-8 , pp. 64/65
- ↑ "Bordée" means broadside or gun salvo, colloquially also full edge and drifting around in pubs.
- ↑ see the cover of the LP and, similarly, the single on discogs.com
- ↑ a b c Christian-Louis Eclimont (Ed.): 1000 Chansons françaises de 1920 à nos jours. Flammarion, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-0812-5078-9 , p. 775
- ↑ Chart history of the Soldat-Louis-Platten at lescharts.com
- ↑ see the program announcement for the FIL 2019 on April 11, 2019 at ouest-france.fr
- ↑ Pascal Lamour: Un monde de musique bretonne. Ed. Ouest-France, Rennes 2018, ISBN 978-2-7373-7898-0 , p. 193
- ↑ see the article “ A hymn in preparation? "And" Debout Lorient , the CD is for sale ", both on the club website fclweb.fr
- ↑ Article “Seemannsmentalität in Lorient” (author: Hardy Grüne ), in ZEITSPIEL magazine, issue 4, 2016, p. 55 f.
- ↑ see the track list of this LP at discogs.com
- ↑ a b Chart sources: FR