Johnny 'allyday is not my favourite at all (not in any way) but you might find this faintlyinteresting, even faintly amusing. It concerns his recent Albert Hall concert and the piece was written by Melvyn Bragg, who is a radio and TV "culture vulture" in Britain (actually he's very good and takes culture in its widest sense, which is admirable). It is from a circular e-mail:
And on we go. The week's been a very funny one. Andrew Lloyd Webber got a gang together to go and see Johnny Hallyday on his first ever concert in London. This seventy-something French rock star is a phenomenon. The French don't like rock and roll, or they didn't when I first went to Paris to work in the late 50s and then frequently in the 60s, the French loved jazz, especially black jazz, and their own chansons and ballads. Rock and roll they regarded as vulgar. Johnny Hallyday, who had spent part of his early life in America, loved rock and roll and set out to become the leading, in fact the solitary, rock and roller in the whole of France. He dominates France. His concerts are always sold out, but elsewhere in the world he is ignored and sometimes even dismissed.
He's a good old rocker and he filled the Albert Hall with wildly enthusiastic French people who sang along to his songs, and he did the rock and roll thing of holding out the mic so that they could sing while he took a break. He was dressed head to toe in leather. The light show was blinding so that you needed dark glasses just to pick him out on the stage. He has a voice which has the power of a Harley Davidson at full throttle.
Hallyday is actually 69, not 70, but, nevertheless, the idea of him "dressed head to toe in leather" and in front of the likes of Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Melvyn Bragg brought a wry smile to my lips. Sorry, Francophiles.