Véronique Sanson

Véronique Sanson (full name, Veronique Marie Line Sanson, according to the ASCAP Songwriter's Database, born April 24, 1949, in Boulogne, near Paris, France) is a two-time Victoires de la Musique Award-winning French singer-songwriter, musician, and producer with an avid following in her native country.

She brings a very personal vocal style to the singing of French pop songs: her voice has a very strong vibrato. Still nowadays Véronique Sanson is considered as one of the most talented French songwriter, and each of her appearance in the media is a popular event.

Unlike most previous French artists of the Sixties and early Seventies, who mostly released EPs which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, Sanson was one of the first female artists to release actual albums with a full-length artistic statement and comprising songs flowing together thematically. In 1972, her breakthrough album (Amoureuse) was reviewed by many critics as a revolution, and ten years after Barbara, Véronique Sanson became one of the very first french female singer-songwriters to break into stardom.

Over the course of a four-decade career, and despite her tumultuous love life and difficulties to overcome her alcoholism, she has never failed in her artistic career, establishing herself as one of the most prominent artist in France, with an impressive series of hits, sold-out concerts, and platinum albums.

She was romantically involved with French singer songwriter Michel Berger from 1967 to 1972. Their love story has become a part of french pop culture, especially through songs they wrote to each other long after they broke up.

From 1973 to 1979 she was married to American rock musician Stephen Stills. Their son, Chris Stills, is also a musician.

One of her songs, "Amoureuse", was covered in English in 1973 by singer Kiki Dee, and became a major hit in the United Kingdom, covered since by various singers, from Polly Brown (1973) or Olivia Newton John (1974), till dance-music version by Illusive, featuring Amanda Abbs (1997). In 1974, Patti Dahlstrom recorded a second version with her own lyrics, entitled "Emotion", and this new version was covered by Helen Reddy (1974) and Shirley Bassey (1975). Many other covers of "Amoureuse" have been recorded in French, German, Japanese...^[1]

Sanson plays piano and guitar.

According to the SACEM, Véronique Sanson has sold over 5,8 million albums in her native country only^[2].

Childhood and family

Véronique Sanson grew up in the memory of World War II. Both her parents, René and Colette Sanson were members of the resistance during the German occupation of France^[3]. Prior to the war, René Sanson was a French diplomat in The Hague. When the Nazis attacked the Netherlands he sent a coded message to warn the French government that Germany was planning on attacking France through the Belgian borders. This very message was decoded by Colette, a communication worker at the French Ministry of War. It was only a few months later that they met in person in a resistance cell. Both became prominent members of the resistance. In 1944, after the bombing of a German train , Colette was arrested and sentenced to death by the occupation force, before she heroically managed to escape^[4]. After the liberation of Paris, René Sanson was appointed Ministry of Labor in Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. The couple married in 1945. As a lawyer, and an economist, René Sanson remained involved in politics as Député- Mayor of the 13th district of Paris until 1967^[3].

Véronique grew up in a very posh and privileged Parisian home. Her parents considered music as the finest art to be, and emphasized on the musical apprenticeship of their daughters. Her mother introduced her to the guitar, while her dad, who was a great fan of jazz, taught her the piano at the age of 4^[5]. Early on, she displayed great ability to play complex classical pieces by Mozart, Bach or Gershwin. At the age of 13, she already composed her own songs, influenced by The Beatles, Ray Charles and by Dionne Warwick's peculiar vibrato. In 1965, she was struck by amnesia after a severe meningitis. This experience became a leitmotiv in Sanson's work, as she often expressed a deep nostalgia towards her "forgotten childhood"^[6]

Discovery and early recordings: the late 1960s

In 1967, her career began in a trio, the Roche-Martin, with François Bernheim and her sister Violaine Sanson, (Bernheim is currently a songwriter for many notable recording artists including Patricia Kaas, while Violaine Sanson has pursued a career in advertising). What started as a fun adventure ended up as a commercial disaster. Despite their enthusiasm, the three teenagers only managed to sell 312 records, "mostly to their friends, family and pets"^[4]. However, this experience allowed her meeting with Michel Berger (who was actually a childhood acquaintance), with whom she began a romantic relationship as well as a prolific artistic career. He introduced her to his record company (Pathé Marconi), and encouraged her to pursue a solo career. Sanson later mentioned that period as the most productive of her career. In an interview, she recalls that she forced herself to write a song per day to keep up with Michel Berger.^[7]. Similarities in their musical styles definitely played a tremendous part in their love story. In 1969, she released her first solo single, including "Le Feu Du Ciel" and "Le Printemps est là", with very little success despite some radio plays in a few Parisian radios.

The Breakthrough: the early 1970s

After the commercial failure of her first single, her contract with Pathé Marconi had been broken. However, she remained convinced that music was her calling. She kept on working with Michel Berger, who asked her to write songs for Isabelle de Funès, niece of French legendary actor, Louis de Funès. She wrote "Mon voisin", "Une odeur de neige" and "Jusqu'à la tombée du jour" that would later be featured in her 1992 album "Sans Regrets". In 1971, she wrote "La brume de Philadelphie" for Petula Clark. The song was issued as the B- side of her French single "La chanson de Marie Madeleine".

At that stage of her life, Sanson's voice had reached its maturity, and she suddenly discovered her ability to produce a vibrato, which would rapidly become her trademark. Michel Berger and Véronique Sanson, who at that time were an inseparable team, were offered a recording contract by Bernard de Bosson, the emblematic CEO of WEA, the label they will remain faithful to for the rest of their careers.

In 1972, Sanson finally released the album "Amoureuse", produced by Michel Berger. The album received a warm welcome from critics, and with the singles "Besoin de personne", "Amoureuse", and "Bahia", it reached the summit of the charts thanks to intensive radio plays (2x Gold in only 5 months). Songs from this album, still remain very popular in radios' tracklists nowadays. The success of the album had a few downsides for Véronique, who was terrified to perform in front of an audience and therefore refused to schedule concerts. However, Michel Berger and Bernard de Bosson did not agree and forced her to perform a daily showcase at the Eiffel Tower's restaurant. Every night she had to perform four songs in front of "a hord of Japanese tourists who couldn't care less about her songs"^[4]. Nevertheless, she later mentioned it as a necessary experience that has helped her overcome her fear of the stage, and the same year she appeared as the opening act for some of the biggest stars of the time such as Claude Francois, Julien Clerc, and Michel Polnareff.

"Amoureuse" was closely followed by De l'autre côté de mon rêve, which also became a huge success thanks to the singles "Comme je l'imagine", and "Chanson sur ma drôle de vie". But in the meanwhile, she had attended a concert of Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills & Nash) with his new band Manassas in Paris, and met the lead singer, Stephen Stills. The pair fell in love, and Véronique Sanson left Michel Berger. just as De l'autre côté de mon rêve was released. (She supposedly went out to buy cigarettes, but never came back...). The next year (1973), Véronique Sanson went touring in Canada as the main act for the first time of her career. ^[1]

The American Period: 1973-1981

Véronique Sanson and Stephen Stills got married in 1973, in Guildford, England, with notable guests such as The Beatles and The Who. She permanently moved in the United States, but travelled back to France regularly to give concerts, and perform on French television. In 1974, she gave birth to her only child, Chris Stills, in Boulder, Colorado. Sanson seemed very happy in the United States, where she really blossomed as a complete artist. Being close to Stephen Stills taught her a lot about producing and recording music. In interviews, she has often mentioned her preference for the American way of making music, in comparison to what she had experienced in France. In that sense, her marriage also marked a new direction to her career, which has led the French media to constantly associate her music with Anglo-Saxon influences (in her career she has recorded most of her albums in the US, and mostly with American musicians). In the TV documentary "La douceur du danger", Véronique Sanson remembers her first year of marriage as artistically frustrating. While she had been constantly pushed by Michel Berger to work, she did not receive that kind of support from Stephen Stills, who did not take a lot of interest in what she was doing. However, she finally took the leap, and decided to work on a new album^[4].

Far from home, and without musicians, she enrolled Stephen Stills's band (Manassas), and decided to produce the album herself, using what she had learned with Michel Berger and Stephen Stills. In total contrast with her Beatles inspired previous albums, the record came up to be a remarkable mixture of pop and rock'n'roll. Still considered by the critics as her best album to date, "Le Maudit" was released in 1974, and reflects a large spectrum of musical influences such as bossa nova in "Alia Souza", or pure Rock'n'roll in "On m'attends là bas". After a tour in Quebec the same year, she went touring in France, with two concerts at the Olympia (the ultimate goal for a French artist) with Stephen Stills at the bass guitar.

In 1976, she began a long-lasting professional collaboration with producer Bernard Saint-Paul (12 albums) who became a close friend of her. The album Vancouver, recorded in London with British musicians, adds up to her previous achievements. The album went platinum and got a tremendous amount of radio plays, especially the single "Vancouver", one of her biggest hits. In 1976, Véronique Sanson had become an established star. Her music, very much inspired by "la crème de la crème" of American producers, constituted a rarity in the French musical landscape. Her crafted melodies, her poetic lyrics, and the highly skilled musicians surrounding her, were the main reason of the Sanson phenomenon. The Vancouver tour was concluded by two weeks of concerts at the Olympia, where her first live album was recorded.^[8]

In 1977, "Bernard's Song" the opening song of her 6th album, "Hollywood", is presented as a tribute to Bernard Saint Paul (though she denied it since) ^[1]. Recorded in Stevie Wonder's studios in Los Angeles, Hollywood found Sanson combining a disco-inspired sound to pop-driven melodies. Also, this album is often referred to as the most emblematic piece of Sanson's American period. The same year she went on tour across France with Michel Jonasz as her opening act. Although she lived in the United States most of the time, she managed to remain present in the French musical landscape, going back and forth from her home in Colorado to her audience in France.

In 1978, she became the first female artist to perform at "Le Palais des Sports" in Paris (the biggest arena in Paris at that time).

In 1979, she released "7ème", best known for the single "Ma révérence", a tragic ballad with memorable lyrics, that has become her most popular song. Although the main single was a hit, fans usually designate "7ème" as her weakest album. Indeed, it is fair to say that contrarly to the rest of her discography, this record might be the only one that has not aged gracefully, despite it contains some of her best songs ("Toute une vie sans te voir", "Celui qui n'essaie pas", "Mi-maître, mi-esclave"). Overall, the album is quite melancholic, which contrasts with the lightness of "Hollywood" two years earlier. In fact, Véronique Sanson was going through a hard time in her life. She had decided to leave Stephen Stills and was engaged in a tough juridical battle in American courts for the custody of her son. This album marked the beginning of a darker period for the singer, after a decade that can easily be qualified as the zenith of Sanson's career. Indeed, she had managed to craft six critically and commercially acclaimed albums in the lapse of eight years.

Period of Transition: The 1980's

The transition toward the 1980s was difficult and challenging. Still bounded to America by her son (she only gained full custody of her son in 1983), she went back and forth between both countries. After the general disappointment of "7ème", fans and critics were enthusiastic when her new album came out in 1981 (" Laisse-la vivre"). Though the record didn't have any memorable hit singles, it came out as a remarkable ensemble of well-crafted songs. The album went 2x gold, and she spent the following year on the roads, and managed to rally a large audience, during a tour that ended with three weeks on a row at the Palais des Sports of Paris^[9].

In 1983, she permanently settled in France with her son, Christopher, and her boyfriend, actor Etienne Chicot. After a long break, she released an eponymous album in 1985, entirely crafted in France. This nameless album was nicknamed "The white album" by the press, while Sanson often refers to it as "The lil' trees" or "Les p'tits arbres" (the cover features trees painted by Véro over a white background). Critics were excellent, and hardcore fans were thrilled about the long-awaited reunion with the singer. This synth-driven album included "C'est long c'est court" which became a hit on french radios during the summer of 1985, as well as the ballad "Le temps est assassin". The tremendous success of the 1985-86 Tour proved that Véronique Sanson had managed to rally behind her a faithful and patient following, and in November 1985 Sanson settled at the Olympia for an entire months of daily shows^[10].

In 1988, she released the album Moi le venin, which included the highly controversial song Allah (produced by Michel Berger). Censored in the media, Véronique Sanson was forced to withdraw the song of her tour's track list after receiving death threats from radical Muslims. In consequence to these several death threats, she was put under police protection. The Muslim tradition that forbids the reference to Allah in a song was the reason of this violent controversy that occurred a few weeks after a jihad was issued against Salman Rushdie. In reaction to that, Sanson apologized and claimed that the song was only meant to be a message of peace and tolerance. French show business massively stood up for her, and more than a hundred of artists signed a pamphlet against "the diktat of all forms of radicalism"^[11]

In November 1989, Véronique Sanson took part in the first charity tour entitled Les Enfoirés for Les Restos du coeur alongside french rockstars Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, and Jean-Jacques Goldman. Since then, every year an Enfoirés concert has been held on national television with major stars performing covers to encourage people to donate to the Restos du Cœur, a humanitarian institution providing food to the poor across France.

In 1989, a dream came true for her: to play with a symphonic orchestra. After rehearsals in Czechoslovakia with the Czech Symphonic orchestra "Fisyo", a series of six concerts started in December 1989. A live album, was released the subsequent year. She toured with the Symphonic orchestra for a dozen of concerts through France in 1990.

The Glorious 1990s

In 1991, Véronique Sanson received the Grand Prix of "la SACEM" (the French Singer Songwriter guild) to celebrate her entire recording career. The same year, she released a duet with her friend Catherine Lara, entitled "Entre elle et moi".

For the first time since 1980, Véronique chose the United States to record her 9th studio album. As usual, she surrounded herself with the best in the business. Sans regrets, issued in 1992, was a tremendous success propelled by the famous single Rien que de l'eau. This song was the result of an unprecedented collaboration with another songwriter, Bernard Swell, a long time friend. The album went Platinum and its first single still remains one of her biggest hits with over 500 000 copies sold in 6 months.

In 1993, she won a Victoires de la musique (French Grammy Awards) for Best female singer of the year. In march, she performed at the Zenith de Paris. During these shows, she gave a legendary performance of Michel Berger's "Seras-tu là", who had died in 1992. The album recorded at the Zenith went platinum and is considered by many to be her best live recording.^[12].

Between 1992 and 1995, thanks to the enormous success of her last album Sanson went touring in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada etc... During the summer of 1994, at the Francofolies Festival of La Rochelle, many artists gathered to pay an emotional tribute to Véronique Sanson. For more than two hours, Michel Fugain, Alain Chamfort, Yves Duteil, William Sheller, Marc Lavoine, les Innocents and I Muvrini, performed some of her biggest hits in duet with a very emotional Véronique. This magical moment gave birth to a live album released the following year. "Comme ils l'imaginent" went 2x Platinum.

In 1995, she married stand-up comedian Pierre Palmade in Triel-sur-Seine, where she lives since 1981. The same year she recorded a duet with her son Chris Stills entitled "Run". The song was released on a Benefit album for children living with aids (Sol En Si). In 1996, she won her second Victoires de la musique for Best Female Artist of The Year.

Véronique Sanson started the production of a new album in 1997. A video for the first single, "Un etre idéal"^[13], was released at the end of the year, before the album was even finished. As usual, she recorded the album in the United States. Bernard Swell wrote and produced 4 songs of the album. The release was followed by a sold out tour. "Indestructible" is a controversial albums among fans. Some found it overproduced, while others loved the modernity of the album. It is fair to say that it is the most pop oriented album of her career since Hollywood in 1977. Set to become a commercial hit, "Indestructible" (2x gold) failed to score higher than "Sans regrets" (2x platinum) .

During the summer of 1999, Véronique appeared at the Festival "Les Vieilles Charrues". In fact, the singer had in mind the idea to record a cover album of some of Michel Berger's songs, and her performance at "Les Vieilles Charrues" allowed her to test the audience regarding her ambitious project.

Long Distance: the 2000s and beyond

Her cover album of songs written by Michel Berger, a few well-known, but most of them from his early years, was released in 2000 (D'un papillon à une étoile). The press loved it, but the reaction of the audience was more ambivalent. Especially among fans of Michel Berger who regarded the album as a sacrilege. However, it became a huge success and went platinum in just a few weeks. It was followed by a majestic tour produced by Paul Buckmaster (Elton John's producer), and a live album was subsequently issued (Avec vous). Véronique was surrounded by her usual musicians, mostly Americans, as well as a classic formation from Prague. Also, her stage outfits for this tour were entirely created by Yves Saint Laurent himself^[12].

After a prolounged absence due to health problems, Véronique Sanson had to cancel a piano-solo tour in 2002.

In September 2004, a few months after the press had announced her divorce with Pierre Palmade, she released a come back album entitled Longue Distance, produced by long-time friends Bernard Swell and Bernard Saint-Paul. In 2005 her tour was a triumph, spiced up by 9 concerts in the mythical Olympia, where her 8th live album was recorded.

In her autobiography, La Douceur du Danger (written with Didier Varrod), she depicts the most striking events of her life, particularly her alcoholism, and her love life.

The best-of entitled Petits moments choisis was released in November 2007, as she started a long tour until summer 2009, considered by many as her best since 1993-1996. In December 2008, the 22CDs/4DVDS collection "Et voilà", including all her albums/dvds plus a great amount of previously unrelesaed tracks, was consumed in less than a month.

In October 2008, she joined her ex-husband Stephen Stills, and her son Chris Stills, on the stage of the Olympia, to perform a family version of Stills's "Love the one you're with"^[14].

In November 2008, famous rapper Jay-Z released a song called "History", to honor president Barack Obama's election. This song is based on samples and melodies from Véronique Sanson's 1972 song "Une nuit sur son épaule" (the original solo version and not the duet with Marc Lavoine released in 1995). Jay-Z's song features Véronique in background vocals. In December 2008, she declared on Canal Plus's "Le Grand Journal" that she appreciated it, but would have preferred to be asked before^[15].

French-Canadian pop star Ima released a salsa-inspired cover of "Chanson sur ma drôle de vie" for which a video was released in February 2009. Also, a cover of "Amoureuse" was released in June by singer Lara Fabian on her last studio album Toutes les femmes en moi.

Prior to a concert in Jerusalem in June 2009, Sanson has announced she was about to start working on a new album. She also declared that she was working on the organization of a series of concerts with a big band at the Opéra Garnier (in Paris).

Discography

Studio albums

1. Amoureuse (1972)
2. De l'autre côté de mon rêve (1972)
3. Le maudit (1974)
4. Vancouver (1976)
5. Hollywood (1977)
6. 7ème (1979)
7. Laisse-la vivre (1981)
8. Véronique Sanson (1985)
9. Moi le venin (1988)
10. Sans regrets (1992)
11. Indestructible (1998)
12. D'un papillon à une étoile (1999)
13. Longue distance (2004)

Live albums

1. Live at the Olympia 1976
2. Live au Palais des Sports 1981
3. L'Olympia 1985
4. A l'Olympia 89
5. Symphonique Sanson
6. Zenith 93
7. Comme ils l'imaginent
8. Véronique Sanson chante Michel Berger, Avec vous
9. Olympia 2005

Awards

1991: Grand Prix de la SACEM

1993: Victoires de la musique Best Female Artist of the Year

1996: Victoires de la musique Best Female Artist of the Year

2005: Named Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture^[16].

References

External links

• (French) Official Site
• (French) Harmonies : V. Sanson : The 70's
• Biography of Véronique Sanson, from Radio France Internationale