With Sheila, Sylvie Vartan is the darling little girl of French variety. For 60 years, his famous tunes, often cheerful, have enchanted a loyal audience who hum the thirty hits that the star has. On her Instagram account, the 79-year-old singer announced a farewell tour. “It is with great love and emotion that I will meet you at the Dôme de Paris for my farewell tour.” “One day we have to not do one concert too many. I grew up with this audience, I’ve been singing for 60 years, do you realize?, she declared in “Quotidien” on TMC. The years pass and you have to know how to leave. It was so fast, so violent and passionate in every way.”
The concerts will take place from November 8 to 10. The artist with 40 million records sold should perform his greatest hits there. To satisfy fans, and others, who would like to “celebrate the farewells of Sylvain Vartan” (When I was singer of Michel Delpech), we have selected seven titles that you must have listened to.
In the early 1970s, they were the star couple. The rocker and the beautiful blonde. We don’t call them by their name, but simply Johnny and Sylvie. Married since 1965, the two artists gave French pop a child, “King David”. In 1973, they recorded a sensual, carnal and eternal song. Carried by a beautiful melody by Michel Mallory, “I have a problem” offers a tailor-made duet for the two big names. “If you’re not really love you look like it/When I move away you get a little closer”. Behind this ode to the couple, Johnny and Sylvie move away and get closer… from afar. The couple divorced in 1980.
Born in Bulgaria, Vartan arrived in France at the age of 8. This forced exile is working on her. French song loves this kind of story (Adieu mon pays by Enrico Macias). At the end of the 1960s, Pierre Delanoë gave him a personalized and universal text, as he knew how to do for Claude François, Gilbert Bécaud or Dalida. “I have nothing left of my first ten years. Not the poorest doll, nothing left but a little refrain from yesteryear.” It’s beautiful, simple and effective. The Maritza, named after the Bulgarian river (which she will also celebrate in the pretty Nicolas), is a hit and closes most of the concerts of the star who will return to Bulgaria in the 1990s.
Funny song where Sylvie Vartan has fun with clichés, as Mylène Farmer will do twenty-five years later in Sans contrefaçon. In 1967, she signed a film Like a Enjoyable Boy. “As a boy, I am stubborn and very often I give out corrections, you have to be careful. Like a boy.” “There are songs that stick with you,” she explains on stage. Quite simply a hit. It’s fatal (another very interesting title by Barbelivien).
This is the story of a musical miracle. At the start of her career, she received this very pretty song from Charles Aznavour. Deep, delicate and well-found lyrics, La Plus Belle pour aller danser is a hit which marks and changes the image of the artist, confined to covers (Le Loco-Motion) or slightly corny songs (Panne d’essence). It’s the song of maturity: “You can give me the breath that my life lacks in a first cry of happiness. If you want to harvest the spring of my days and the love in my heart this evening.” She’s entering the big leagues.
Two “guilty pleasure” songs: we listen and enjoy. Sylvie Vartan excels in fast songs that “pulse”. What makes blondes cry marks 1976 with its lightness. It’s Desperate Housewives thirty years in advance. Lio will respond in his own way with Brunettes don’t count for plums. After saying that love is like a boat (it rocks, it makes you seasick), five years later she adapted an American hit 9 to 5 (Morning Train) where this time love is compared to a cigarette: we let ourselves be tempted, we take pleasure, we can no longer do without it, but everything goes up in smoke. “Smoke, it’s Vartan.”
Michel Sardou is a solitary and divisive singer. But he sometimes knows how to share. With Sylvie Vartan, he recorded three titles. Johnny’s best friend at the time, the “Jazz singer” does not deliver his best performances – neither in text, nor in music. There remains Les Balkans de Provence, a little song about roots: the Balkans for Sylvie, Provence for Michel. The difference is that Sardou was born in Paris. What should we not invent to create variety?