The French Connection: Salut, Les Copains...Voulez-Vous Faire Un Trip?

So, time to slowly ramp up all my long dormant, but still ongoing series. So, let's see what's what music-wise in my adopted homeland. The title of our One Buck Record of the day is of course a reference to The Trip, this site's one-off trip into garage rock. As I will be the first to tell you, I'm absolutely no authority on that particular subset of music, and the sheer volume of it - there must now be hundreds of comps out there I'd gather - is truly daunting, so I'll leave that to the experts. Truth be told, I had some of these fun tracks lying around and wanted to post something a little different, and that was that. Now, there might've been French garage rockers - and two or three do sow up on Le Trip, notably Les Guitares Du Dimanche - but overall, this isn't necessarily even rock, just some cool ass music from the 60s coming out of la France. 

I also didn't shy away from using the big guns, if there was a good song coming with 'em: La belle Bardot, getting two spots, one in her classic duet with Srege Gainsbourg? Check. The French Elvis, good ol' Johnny Halliday with "Les Coups", an adaptation of ,Stevie Wonder's "Uptight"? Check. French idol Michel Polnareff, who is still touring these days at the tender age of 80, with his classic "La Poupée Qui Fait Non"? Check. Speaking of, here's a relatively little-known fact to win a trivia quiz with your rock'n'roll friends: Who is playing guitar on Michel Polnareff's "La Poupée Qui Dit Non"? Why, it's Jimmy Page! And who's playing bass? Oh look, it's John Paul Jones. Yup, half of Led Zeppelin is playing on it! La classe! Moving on, Claude Nougaro has a bad case of (Peggy Lee''s) "Fever" and neegs to go see the "Docteur". 

And who could forget the famous Ye-Ye Girls, even though that term hardly captures the sometimes brilliant work they did. This is of course especially true for Françoise Hardy, about whom I have already written extensively. I still had to include her moody "Tous Les Graçons Et Le Filles" and "C'est e Temps de L'Amour", both stone-cold classics that no collection of great French tunes from the 60s should be without out. Rarely has anyone made melancholy as catchy as Mrs. Hardy here. I also love Jaqueline Taieb's "7 H Du Mat", which as the album opener gives a bit the tone of the compilation: a little irreverent, a little sexy, a little bit of rockn'roll rebellion. Unlike The Trip, Le Trip also has a bunch of jazzy undertones. Staying with the ladies, special mention also goes to another actress-cum-singer, Jeanne Moreau whose "Le Tourbillon" should be a much better known classic, Also pretty cool are Michèle Lagrange and "Si Ma Chanson Pouvait" and Suzanne Gabriello's "Votez, Hein, Bon!", which is really close to being a novelty song, but falls just on the right side of the line. 

As for oddities, we have author Boris Vian, best known for L'écume du jour, who was also an accomplashished jazz musician and speak-sings hisway through "Je Suis Snob", while Jean Bernard De Libreville's "La Juxtaposition 210" is almost avant garde. The aforementioned Guitares Du Dimanche should probably pay some royalties to the Kinks for "Sur Une Nappe De Restaurant", which sounds a lot like "All Day And All Of The Night", and goes to show that even in France garage rock was well and alive in the 60s... 

There are also two lucky charms that aren't French in the pack: Both Luckies Alba and Jones are Belgian, but hey, who's counting right? There be dragons! Or mussels...from Brussles! Jones' "Plus En Plus Fort", is an adaptation of "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes", joining othet beat grouops like The Kingsmen, The Rattles or The Undertakers in covering that tune. 

So, listen to this and transport yourself back into the 60s to the Côte D'Azur with a portable radio or into a hip Parisian jazz club...alors, tout le monde, êtes-vous prêt à faire Le Trip?