Celine Dion : what it owes to Jean-Jacques Goldman – Gala

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In the mid-nineties, Jean-Jacques Goldman had insisted to work with Celine Dion. Friday, January 26, at 21 hours on TF1 in the program Goldman, 40 years of songs, the canadian is also from the party.

Who goes there ? WhenRené Angélil accepts the first appointment withJean-Jacques Goldman, it is almost never heard. Céline Dion, whose american career has already taken off, not more. As well, the couple has gently agreed to this interview arranged by their record company common Sony just out of curiosity, just to see what it looks like this boy who insisted to meet them. That knows René Angélil this quadra-like teen who gets off her motorcycle in front of the restaurant Chez Pauline in the Ier arrondissement of Paris ? Not large-thing. Oh, he read that he had participated in the success in France, Johnny Hallyday, writing the album Gang, the great success of the year 1986. But hey, Johnny Hallyday is nice and all, but on the other side of the Atlantic, we really don’t know who it is. One thing is for sure : it is necessary to Celine of the French songs, but especially songs that touch the French audience that eludes him again, as the québécois. Not so simple.

As for Goldman, it came with ammo. For weeks, he has prepared himself, has looked at everything, listened to Céline. Since the beginning of this last, he followed its evolution with interest, has seen it several times on stage, has measured its potential. He also knows that he will not have to only convince and seduce the singer, but also her husband-manager-pygmalion. As a connoisseur of the music scene, Goldman has a theory, which it exposes. In France, there is a void to fill. If anglophones can feast on a Whitney Houston or Barbra Streisand, the French-language equivalent does not exist, not yet anyway. But beware : if the american public appreciated more than anything the vocal performance almost athletic, the French consider the singers voice as vulgar gueulardes. René listens carefully, gauge the boy who does not lack nerve. Not only it means that Celine has to relearn to sing, but he offers to write and compose alone the whole album, to give it an artistic coherence ! The impresario tick. A natural conservative he doesn’t like to put all of his eggs in the same basket. In addition, it has promised to the faithful, Quebec songwriter Luc Plamondon – the man of Starmamia, responsible for the first successful in France, Céline – to be in the case. Why would he not text, and Goldman the music ? Silence. Coming out of the restaurant, even if he has enjoyed the company of a couple warm, the latter then said that it was white cabbage. But it does not loose the case.

A few months later, he invites them to listen to songs in studio, just of the skeletons that he sings himself, accompanied by playback or pre-recorded. The titles follow each other – I will go or you go , I don’t know … -, and arrives in the tower For you to love me again. For a natural, expansive, Celine stands up, goes out of control, will immediately recognize in this text the exact terms of her romance with Rene. Culled, the latter is forced to bow to the relevance of the work of Goldman. Banco, he will stake everything on Jean-Jacques who knew so well in a few meetings to feel it, to translate their feelings into song. And so much the worse for Luc Plamondon, who admitted years later, a good loser, to have accused the blow.

Quickly, they return to the studio. As soon as the first taken, Goldman and his staff are amazed by the ease of the singer, its musicality, its correctness. Goldman continues to insist : “nothing serves as a shout, to insist, to roll the r when she says the word love. Celine, satisfied, listening, following instructions of the one who asks him to ” become disillusioned “, and put at the service of the texts, treating each syllable for the French audience that likes that it tells a story rather than attending a vocal competition. The symbiosis between the author and his interpreter is total and, in a short week, the twelve songs are in the box.

The album Of them comes out on march 27, 1995, a few days before the thirtieth anniversary of Céline. The resonance is immediate, phenomenal, and critics on both sides of the Atlantic, turn casaques, welcoming the sober master’s voice of the singer. In France, the figures give the whirling disease : carried by the single For you to love me again, the CD is a disk of diamond in just five months (a million copies sold at the time), and the remaining forty-four consecutive weeks at the head of sales for a total score of four million copies that have passed, a record still unmatched. Of them is the first francophone album to get a gold record in Britain, and covers the final 10 million copies sold in the world. Thanks to Goldman – and his immense talent, Celine Dion returned in the very closed club of the greats of the French chanson, of those who are spreading the language abroad.

Yet stingy with compliments, René agreed. Of them is the best album in French of Céline, it is therefore necessary to renew the experience. Full tornado Titanic, she found, therefore, in 1997 Goldman in the studio it was enough to love (4 million copies sold). If the duo does not see the magic and the charm of the first few times, the song that gives the album its title is a tube and, with It does not change between in the very closed club of the classic Celine Dion. Caught by its obligations to north american, she finds Goldman five years later to A daughter, and four types (1.3 million records sold). And then in 2007 for them (500 000 copies passed) written exclusively by women, with a Jean-Jacques, which is only to supervise the recording.

The album crisis is past by there, sales have nothing to do with those in the ‘ 90s, but the link between Céline Dion and Jean-Jacques Goldman remains strong in spite of the distance and the semi-retirement of the latter.

Credits photos : Bestimage

Jean-Jacques Goldman, Céline Dion

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