“I’m the most ultra guy / I can’t help it, I’m causing havoc / The Dean Martin of the canteen / The Sinatra of the tobacco bar.” In 1985, then crowned by the success of Tanned, Come to my house, I’m staying with a friend et Walk in the shadeMichel Blanc made an infidelity in cinema and made a foray into music.
A brief career of which only one single remains as witness, The most ultra guya self-deprecating love song where he makes fun of crooners. “I am the most ultra guy / The king of the kamasutra / At night, the mothers / all want me to marry their daughter,” he sings in this song.
The best musicians of the time
In 2018, Michel Blanc told BFMTV behind the scenes of this astonishing song that had fallen into oblivion. “The recording industry wanted to pull off stunts. As soon as someone was known, they were asked to make a 45 rpm single. I’m not the only one to have done that,” he defended himself with humor.
Michel Blanc is not a singer, but accepts without hesitation, reassured by his collaborators. “They offered it to me, telling me that Gérard Presgurvic [compositeur des premiers tubes de Patrick Bruel, NDLR] was going to write the music and that the session was going to be directed by Manu Katché. So you say to yourself: ‘It’s all good ones’.”
As Le Figaro reminds us, The most ultra guy is recorded by the best musicians of the time: Manu Katché (drums), but also Jean-Yves d’Angelo (keyboards), Michel Gaucher (saxophone), Kako Bessot (trumpet) and Kamil Rustam (guitar). The photo illustrating the cover was taken on the set of the film drunken night.
“Need to entertain myself”
After the success of Walk in the shadeMichel Blanc is at the end of a cycle. He needs to give new impetus to his career and no longer wants to play the skinny, mustachioed loser. For him, music is the perfect place to start reinventing himself. But success will not be there.
“It was a moment when I needed to entertain myself,” he told BFMTV in 2018. “I was coming off a very big success, Walk in the shade. When it’s your first film it leaves you knocked out. I tried to do something else to occupy my mind.” And added, with a touch of bitterness:
“I admit that, if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do it, but hey, there you go, it’s done, it doesn’t matter, we have the right to do stupid things in a career.”
In 1985, in parallel with Mec plus ultraMichel Blanc turns Evening wear. In this dramatic comedy by Bertrand Blier, he plays a man who leaves his wife for another man. A role which earned him the prize for best actor at Cannes and allowed him to definitively establish himself as an actor.
Original article published on BFMTV.com
