A star of French song has just passed away: the singer Gilles Dreu, interpreter ofLarkbig hit of 1968, died Tuesday January 7, 2025 at the age of 90 at his home in Vals-les-Bains (Ardèche), producer Pierre-Nicolas Cléré announced to AFP on behalf of the family.
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The artist announced that he was suffering from cancer in 2020. Which did not prevent him, that same year, from publishing a sixteenth and final studio album, The Friends Countercompiling unpublished songs in the form of duets with, in particular, Serge Lama, Fabienne Thibault, Didier Barbelivien, Stone and Gérard Lenorman.
A discreet but long-term career
In 2022, Gilles Dreu celebrated his 63rd career on the stage of La Nouvelle Eve, in Paris. And 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, emblematic artistic director of the time. He had his biggest success in 1968 with Larkwritten by hitmaker Pierre Delanoë and which was the adaptation of an Argentinian song.
-The hit of a lifetime
“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 right time,” Gilles Dreu told the magazine Schnock in 2023.
“The song could have gone unnoticed. However, in 1968, we were in a Latin American atmosphere during the revolutionary period. I had a physique, mustache and cigar, which evoked a little Che Guevara, who was a poster in all the student rooms,” he added.
Singer until his last breath
Gilles Dreu had 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 tours Tender age and wooden head. He has performed regularly as a solo artist in recent years.
Our “Singer” file
Gilles Dreu, who was also an actor for cinema and television series, said his goodbyes in February 2024 after a final concert in Vendée: “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 have it,” he declared at the time.
