Friday's French music break - Dalida, "Depuis Qu'Elle Est Partie"

Friday's French music break this week a whole album. Oh let's be really greedy then and make it a double!

It's "Depuis qu’elle est partie" which is a tribute to one of France's most famous singers - the late Yolanda Gigliotti.

You and many others might know her better under the name with which she achieved fame, not just in France but worldwide: Dalida, the Egyptian-born singer-actress whose extraordinary career included phenomenal success combined with a tragic personal life.

It's well chronicled elsewhere on the Net (try her biography on Radio France Internationale for starters) so there's no need to go into great detail here.

But the impact Dalida had over a 30-year period and the way she lived, loved and ended her life, led to the "iconic image of her as a tragic diva" which persists to this day.

If you've lived in France, for no matter how short a time, the chances are you'll have heard and perhaps recognise one her many, many hits.

And some of them have been collected on this double album produced by her brother Orlando and released on May 3 to mark the 25th anniversary of her death.

Disc one is pure Dalida - 20 tracks which include some of her best known songs such as "Bambino", "Il venait d'avoir 18 ans", "Laissez-moi danser" and of course (with Alain Delon) "Paroles paroles".

And then there's that second disc - proof, if it were really needed, of her legacy.

It also contains 21 tracks - sometimes of the same songs - performed by a whole host of (mostly French) artists such as Christophe Willem, Hélène Ségara, Patrick Fiori, Dany Brillant and Christophe.

Some of them aren't half bad, such as the interpretation the fabulous Amel Bent gives of "A ma manière" others are...well a bit iffy to say the least.

But the real class of course is from the diva herself - hard to improve on even though many have tried over the years in cover versions.

So here, for fans and the plain curious alike, a video clip available on YouTube of Dalida performing the completely over-the-top but nonetheless tremendous (well it's all a matter of personal taste, isn't it?) 1974 hit "Gigi l'amoroso".

Listen to those rrrrrrrrrrrolling "rs"