Gilles Dreu, singer of the 1960s hit “Alouette”, has died

In 2022, Gilles Dreu celebrated his 63rd career on the stage of La Nouvelle Ève in Paris. He performed one last time at the Olympia in 2023 during an evening in tribute to Jacques Brel.

The singer Gilles Dreu, interpreter ofLarka 1968 hit, died on Tuesday January 7 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.

The artist went public with cancer in 2020. The same year, he released a sixteenth and final studio album, The Friends Counternew songs in the form of duets with notably Serge Lama, Fabienne Thibault, Didier Barbelivien, Stone and Gérard Lenorman.

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 Larkwritten by hitmaker Pierre Delanoë, 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 told the magazine Schnock in 2023.The song could have gone unnoticed. However, we were in a Latin American atmosphere in 1968, a revolutionary period. I had a physique, mustache and cigar, which reminded me a little 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 has recorded more than 200 songs, without however repeating his first and only great success.

Born Jean-Paul Chapuisat on 31 July 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. Gilles Dreu, who was also an actor for cinema and series TV, said goodbye in February after a final concert in Vendée : “I won't be a singer tomorrow morning. Tonight is really the last time. And, even though I bragged about never having stage fright, tonight I do.”