Claude François grooves beyond the grave

Thirty years ago today, Claude François was taking an afternoon bath at his home outside Paris to wash off suntan oil. Standing in the water, he tried to straighten a metal light fixture and the electric shock killed him.

Cloclo, as he was known, was 39 years old and France's biggest star of the pop-disco style. He was a slightly-built, light-voiced singer with a huge following of girl fans. Thanks to an alchemy that takes a little explaining, his death turned him from teen idol into a cult. His albums and DVDs are still selling at a rate of nearly 400,000 a year, making about 10 million euros for Claude junior, his son and the other heirs. Half his 60 million albums have been sold since his death, helping a younger generation ape his kitschy ballads and jaunty tunes in karaoke bars. Provincial clubs are full of professional Cloclo impersonators wearing copies of the 500 sequined suits that he left behind. 

But don't laugh yet, François' best-known composition was the most popular song played at British funerals until it recently gave way to James Blunt's dirge Goodbye My Lover. I am talking about Comme d'Habitude, which François wrote in collaboration with Jacques Revaux. Paul Anka gave it English lyrics in 1969 and sold it to Frank Sinatra with the title My Way. [François' version in video at end of post] 

Hundreds have joined a memorial pilgrimage today to the Moulin de Dannemois the home that has been turned into a shrine and which Claude junior aims to turn into a "French Graceland".

The 30th anniversary of Cloclo's death has produced a flood of books, television tributes and media cover. One book, Un Amour Absolu, by Sylvie Mathurin, is a love-letter by a woman who adored Cloclo from childhood and landed a job just before his death as his wardrobe manager. "You think that you can get over it, but in the end you do not. It's very destructive. This love formed me. It grew in me from the age of eight," she said in one of her numerous media appearances.

The odd thing about Cloclo mania is that François was no musical giant or tragic figure like the late Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel and Dalida. His stage presence was pale alongside that of Johnny Hallyday, the Gallic rocker. His attraction was his talent as an energetic, wistful boy-next-door performer. For the first half of his career almost all his material was American, starting with his first, 1962, hit: Belles Belles (top video). This was a French version of Girls Girls (are made to love), written in 1961 by Phil Everly.

"The songs of Claude François worked more because of the nearly hysterical energy that he put into interpreting them than from the content of their texts," le Parisien said today. Thirty years on, the experts say that Cloclo set the stage for his immortality by creating a personality cult around himself that was ahead of his time. The real man was a control-freak, hard worker, tough boss and a tyrant with his wives and girl-friends but he forged a brand as a happy chap with a sad heart. He ran his own fan magazine, filmed early video clips, formed a troupe of sexy dancers called the Clodettes to accompany him and even launched a perfume "Eau Noire"

His son, who has his father's business acumen, says that he is surprised by how long the cult has endured. "For ten years at least I have been wondering each year if it is about to stop. You can talk about a real social phenomenon. His songs are the accompaniment to people's happy times and they are guaranteed to work at weddings and parties." Here's Claude junior's new official site for his Dad.

Comments

[azloon]

Comme d'Habitude/My Way is a great song. genius song.

i saw a funny cartoon in the New Yorker magazine around the time of the song's popularity in the u.s.

in it, an elderly couple is sitting in lawn chairs, next to a mobile home, in a florida trailer park. the man is saying to his wife: 'My only regret in life is that i did it my way."

[Yes I still think it's a great tune too. While François gets the credit and he certainly turned it into the first hit, his contriubution to the tune was mainly to insert the bridge section (the refrain) and tinker a bit with the piece that Jacques Revaux brought him. Cloclo's version also was a lament to boredom in a couple, not the self-inflating anthem that Anka wrote for Sinatra. CB]

[Joan Arles]

I love all that happy-go-lucky innocence. Especially the girls dancing in the snow! I'll take Cloclo over the dreary James Blunt any day. But snuffing yourself in the bath is a little uncool too.

[aline]

I still remember that afternoon he died, maybe it was holidays or a wednesday, because I was not in school but playing outside with my friends. Then someone told us and I remember crying and feeling so sad, which is weird because I was not a huge fan, but I liked his songs very much...I was 10 at the time.
And now 30 years it is so good to hear him on the radio from tinme to time.
And he is played so much in nightclub in France !!

[It was a Saturday afternoon, Aline. Francois was preparing to appear live on Michel Drucker's tv show (some things don't change). The news obliterated the following day's élections législatives. CB]

[Dominique]

One of the 4 deaths asolutly unavoidable : DeGaulle, Pompidou, Cloclo, Coluche.

I am sure every frenchmen or woman, old enough, remembers exactly those moments.

for me :

DeGaulle : i was 6 but remember hearing from it at school!

Pompidou : we thought it was a poisson d'avril, my grand mother was happy when she learned that was not!

Cloclo : ski!

Coluche : ahh! coluche!! still mourning. I still can't help my self wishing he was there nowadays.

[Ros]

It's the first time I've heard he "was trying to wash off sun-tan oil" - where had he been on that saturday?

[Alain]

Claude François was the worst calamity to strike the French scene ever.

I thank the almighty God everyday for delivering us all from the scourge this hysterical monkey inflicted upon us during the 60's.

Re "Comme d'habitude", as Mr. Bremner says C. François had little to do with the tune.

Hasard des programmations radio, cette chanson a été promue again and again et à la fin it caught the ear of the innocent listener. C'aurait pu être une autre ritournelle. En plus les paroles françaises sont ridicules de mièvrerie.

Good ridance anyway...

[Monika]

Mh. Of course the tune is great but having grown up with the Sinatra version of it rather than this I can't stop comparing it to the American one and finding it some sort of less interesting. That is of course not the fault of Francois. Just my listening habits are to blame.
Nevertheless, I never understood the fascination this singer stirred. I always found his interpretations as somehow very staged and rather artificial. What would fit to him presumably being a control freak.

[john o'doe]

Yet another seedy secular saint.

[Romain]

I can't believe Claude François was killed by EDF (Electicité De France) and its 220 volts.
Was it MI6,Mossad,CIA,SDECE,KGB ? A lot of people had a clear interest in silencing him.
I can tell a conspiracy when I see one...

[You're right. There are of course many conspiracy theories... And Nicolas Canteloup this morning called him 'Monsieur 220 volts" (After Gilbert Bécaud, Monsieur 1000 volts). CB]

[Peter Schmetz]

Cloclo was a great performer. That's why France fell in love with him. It's foolish to measure him against the criteria of 2008.

[Eva]

So nice to see this! I was 18 when Cloclo died and remember him well. The singers Khaled, Rachid Taha and Faudel made a wonderful remake of "Comme D´habitude".