Friday's French music break - Christophe Willem, "I will always love you"

Friday's French music break this week is a tribute of sorts with Christophe Willem tackling the late Whitney Houston's signature song, "I will always love you."

Christophe Willem (screenshot from Europe 1 performance)

Actually it's not an official single, but a version of the song Willem has performed several times in concert over the years.

Willem first shot to fame in France in 2006 during season four of the TV talent show Nouvelle Star (the equivalent in this country of Pop Idol).

When he auditioned in Toulouse he appeared to be the most unlikely of eventual winners, dressed as he was in the ugliest of stripey pullovers and an old pair of jeans, and with a posture that earned him the nickname of "La Tortue" (The Turtle) from Marianne James, one of the judges.

Christophe Willem - audition for Nouvelle Star (screenshot from video clip)

It was an epithet that was to stick with a title of the same name by French songwriter Philip Katerine appearing on Willem's first album.

With, in the words of André Manoukian, another of the judges, his "voice of a diva and excellent swing" Willem charmed the jury and public alike, turning in one startling performance after another as the weeks passed and topping the whole shebang off by winning, of course.

Fans had to wait the best part of a year before Willem released his excellent debut album "Inventaire" with tracks written by the likes of Katerine, Zazie and Olivier Schultheis, and there followed concert dates and TV appearances as Willem firmly established himself on the French music scene.

Since then, Willem has released two further studio albums, "Caféine" in 2009 and "Prismophonic" in 2011; in both cases his music has taken a distinct electro-pop music turn.

And that's a shame, because one of the 28-year-old's strengths is the purity and clarity he brings to acoustic versions of songs.

The excellent "Jacques a dit" from the "Inventaire" album is probably the best example, "I will always love you" which he performs in concert, is another.

But - and it's a massive but - in his rendition of the song written by Dolly Parton but made famous by Houston, Willem is walking the proverbial fine line of turning an already over-sentimental song into pure and simple schmaltz.

Arguably, Houston got away with it because of who she was, her voice and her star stature.

Willem, however good he is when performing simple piano and voice (and he is good) sounds like someone putting in a not-quite-as-good performance of a song that probably irritated and moved in equal proportions when sung by Houston, who had made it her own.

Anyway, take a listen - if you dare.

The Europe 1 version is an extract and thankfully lasts little over a minute.



If you're a real glutton for an aural drubbing, you can listen to the one of the live performances available on YouTube such as this one on television a couple of years ago.

Bon courage et bon week-end!

Yael Naïm wins Best Female Artist at France's Victoires de la musique awards

Tuesday evening saw part two of Les Victoires de la musique awards, the French equivalent of the Grammys, broadcast live from Paris on France 2.

"Part two" because, in their infinite wisdom, organisers decided viewers probably weren't up for several hours of tra-la-la-ing and thank you speeches to all and sundry and split the ceremony in two.

Yael Naïm (screenshot from YouTube video)

February 9 was dedicated solely to newcomers and "revelations" with the public getting to vote in each category and the whole shebang being broadcast live from the northern city of Lille on France 2's (much) smaller sister station France 4.

Meanwhile Tuesday saw awards handed out to the "more established" artists with industry professionals getting to determine who got what.

Of course the voting procedure is more complex than that; but by and large the heavyweight awards were decided by those "in the know" who had already whittled the nominees in each category down to four and, apart from the Song of the Year which was left to a public vote, determined who got the gongs.

Perhaps the most interesting category of the evening was that of Best Female Artist because it had, in a real sense, a truly international flavour to it.

Added to that, there were some stunning performances although only three of the nominees were present.

Canadian Cœur de pirate (otherwise known as Béatrice Martin when she's not performing) who won the award in 2010 for Best Song gave a simple voice and piano rendition of "Francis" from her self-titled 2009 album.

Nigerian-French singer-songwriter Aṣa (pronounced Asha), trademark big specs and velvet timbre of a voice, treated the audience and viewers to a groovy "Be my man" taken from her 2010 album "Beautiful imperfection".



And French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naïm added a touch of soul and jazz as well as a heap of gospel to her pop-folk rock "Come home" from her "She was a boy" album.

Phew!

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Only Vanessa Paradis - French model-actress-singer and partner of Johnny Depp (or should that be the other way round?) was missing.

Perhaps she had guessed she wouldn't be picking up an award this time around but she already has a heap of them to her name.

And the winner is...Yael Naïm.

In the night's other categories awards were picked up by Gaëtan Roussel for both Best Male Artist and Best Album, M (full name Matthieu Chedid) and veteran Eddy Mitchell jointly for best concert/show/tour and Philippe Katerine (love him or hate him) for his splendidly as-usual off-the-wall "La banane" as Best Video.



The last award for Best Song - and the only one on the night left to the public vote - went to "Je veux" by Zaz.

As Paris Match said, "A lively evening and a long way from the seemingly interminable hours of poorly paced entertainment" viewers were subjected to last year.