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JOHNNY HALLYDAY

Johnny Hallyday hits New York after 50 years away

He's 69 and had health problems of late, but French rocker Johnny Hallyday sounds like a wired teenager when he talks about his first performance in New York in 50 years.

Published: 8 October 2012 17:28 CEST
Johnny Hallyday hits New York after 50 years away
Photo: Flickr user rufusowliebat

"A two-hour show, with music from the 70s up through to today, with fantastic musicians. It is going to be true rock 'n' roll. We're going to bring the house down," Hallyday told AFP in an interview.

Hallyday is to sing Sunday evening at the Beacon Theatre, a hall that was built in 1929, seats about 2,900 and has seen its share of stars: Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and Queen are among the big names who have graced its stage.

France's answer to Elvis Presley has sold more than 100 million albums and played 45 major tours in a career that began in the 1960s.

But fans got a scare over the summer when he was treated for bronchitis, being flown by helicopter from the island of Saint Barts, where he has a home, to the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

Hallyday was hospitalized again last month in Los Angeles, where he is based.

But now he is back on tour. He sang last week in Montreal, donning black leather pants and cowboy boots before an adoring crowd of 15,000 who were treated to some of Hallyday's greatest hits.

"I had not played there in 12 years. I love the people there because they have a great musical culture and have given me much warmth and love. I'll be back there soon, that's for sure," he said.

And after New York, where the French ex-pat community is certain to give him a rousing welcome, he has gigs scheduled in several cities in France, then London, Luxembourg, Moscow, Tel Aviv and Brussels.

Hallyday said he is delighted to be performing in New York. He has only done so once before, in 1962, aboard a ship anchored at the port for a charity show. He remembers it fondly because Jackie Kennedy was in the audience.

Hallyday also gushed enthusiasm for the Big Apple itself.    

"I know this city well because I have lived here and recorded albums here. It is also one of the legendary cities of rock and roll, so I just had to
perform here," he said.

Hallyday has an album coming out in November and will remain in France until the end of December to promote it. Then he will shoot a movie in January with French director Claude Lelouch.

"But I will get back on the road very quickly," Hallyday said.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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