CHANTEUSE

Alex Gerry celebrates the career of SYLVIE VARTAN, Queen of French pop

Sylvie Vartan’s story is pop music’s bestkept secret, yet it is an inspirational one worth uncovering. Sylvie was undoubtedly destined to be a star, a feeling you get the minute you meet her in person. Her life is a classic rags-to-riches tale in the Hollywood mould – fittingly, the place where she’s been settled since the 80s. She cuts a charismatic figure as she orders a Lapson Souchong in a quaint hotel’s tea room off Paris’ Champs Elysées and reflects on her incredible journey.

One miserable Christmas Eve in 1952, the downand- out Vartan family left everything they had behind, including relatives they’d never see again, fleeing the dictatorship of communist Bulgaria and winding up at Gare Du Nord. Growing up in a tiny low-rent hotel room and eating humble pie proved no bed of roses. She told her Mother once, “Don’t worry, I’ll be rich one day and I’ll buy you a big house.” She wasn’t joking.

Older brother Eddie, a classically-trained musician, quickly made significant headway on the Parisian jazz scene. That landed him an enviable position as Decca’s artistic director. His friend Daniel Filipacchi was the founder of Salut Les Copains, Europe 1’s Rock’n’Roll radio show and the …

by Alex Gerry
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