The singer performs “Lark“, success of 1968, Gilles Dreu, is dead. This Tuesday, January 7, 2025, he breathed his last in the morning, at his home in Vals-les-Bains (Ardèche). This was announced to AFP by its producer Pierre-Nicolas Cléré on behalf of the family.
He was 90 years old and was fighting cancer since 2020. An illness which did not prevent him, 4 years ago, from releasing his 16th and final album. In “The Friends Counter“, he sang notably with Serge Lama, Fabienne Thibault, Didier Barbelivien, Stone and Gérard Lenorman.
Gilles Dreu sang until the end
Two years ago, he also celebrated his 63-year careeron the stage of La Nouvelle Eve in Paris. A year later, he also took part in an evening tribute to Jacques Brel, at the Olympia. Finally, he said goodbye to the stage, in February 2024, after a final concert in Vendée.
To his fans, he then admitted: “I will no longer be a singer tomorrow morning. Tonight is really the last time. And, even though I bragged about never having stage fright, tonight I do.”
Jean-Paul Chapuisat, his real name, began his career in small Parisian cabarets from 1959. He chose his stage name, using the name of his birthplace, Dreux. And “Lark, Lark“, was his biggest hit, he continued his career throughout his life.
This title, written by Pierre Delanoë, is in reality an adaptation of an Argentinian song. “At first, (actor and singer) Jean-Claude Pascal refused this song. My whole life has been a misunderstanding !”he explained in the magazine Schnock in 2023.
A career without doing it on purpose
And to add: “The song could have gone unnoticed. However, we were in a Latin American atmosphere in 68, a revolutionary period. I had a physique, mustache and cigar, which evoked a bit of Che Guevara as a poster in all the student rooms.”
In total, there are more than 200 songs that Gilles Dreu recorded. Additionally, he had a small career in film and television as an actor. Married three times, the last of which to the photographer Yolande Gervaise, he was the father of 3 children.
