Singer Gilles Dreu, singer of “Alouette”, a 1968 hit, died Tuesday morning at the age of 90 at his home in Vals-les-Bains (Ardèche), producer Pierre-Nicolas announced to AFP Keyed in the name of the family.
The artist made cancer public in 2020. The same year, he published a sixteenth and final studio album, “Le Comptoir des amis”, unpublished songs in the form of duets with notably Serge Lama, Fabienne Thibault, Didier Barbelivien, Stone and Gérard Lenorman.
In 2022, Gilles Dreu celebrated his 63rd career on the stage of La Nouvelle Eve in Paris. He performed one last time at the Olympia in 2023 during an evening in tribute to Jacques Brel, with other artists.
After starting out in small Parisian cabarets from 1959, the singer was spotted by Léo Missir, the emblematic artistic director of the time.
He had his biggest success in 1968 with “Alouette, Alouette”, written by hitmaker Pierre Delanoë, an adaptation of an Argentinian song.
“I was the first Frenchman, after Aphrodite's Child and the Beatles. Claude François and Johnny were far behind! A great success is the encounter of a work with the performer it needs and at the same time appropriate time”, Gilles Dreu confided to the magazine Schnock in 2023.
“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 was a bit reminiscent of Che Guevara as a poster in all the student rooms” , he added.
“At the start, (actor and singer) Jean-Claude Pascal refused this song. My whole life has been a misunderstanding!”, he added.
Gilles Dreu recorded more than 200 songs, without repeating his first and only major success.
Born Jean-Paul Chapuisat on July 31, 1934, the man whose pseudonym was inspired by Dreux, his hometown, returned with the “Age tendre et tête de bois” tours. He has performed regularly as a solo artist in recent years.
Gilles Dreu, who has also been an actor for the cinema and TV series, said his goodbyes in February after a final concert in Vendée: “I will no longer be a singer tomorrow morning. Tonight, it's really last time. And, even though I bragged about never having stage fright, tonight I do.”
