Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Vive les chansons de Kiki! ♪♫♪


In the year of 1957, a lad by the name of Christian Ysaye entered the bright and brazen world; location the Belgian capital, Brussels. What marked this boy out from the rest of the flock was his family musical legacy, his father Jacques Ysaye was an established orchestra conductor, while his grandpa was Eugene Ysaye, famous in his homeland and beyond as a composer and violinist. Obviously some of this talent rubbed off on Christian and so! at the tender age of 8 and a half the newly baptised Kiki embarked upon his musical adventure with his first record in 1965 under the direction of his dad. Employing his pysdeoneum of Jack Say, Jacques wrote, produced and over saw most of his son's records - all though Kiki did have a hand in penning his own songs - natch! This first record in question was the release "C'est Parti Mon Kiki" on the Palette record label. Even at this age Kiki's boundless joie de vivre comes though - singing with a playful maturity beyond his years. On the EP release is the amazing "Vive Les Chansons Yé-Yé" which by its very name could be the theme of the whole genre and was one of the songs written by the man himself. Moving on to 1967 came perhaps Kiki's recording opus with the amazing Bond-inspired "L'Agent Secret" - perhaps one of the finest examples of it's kind! Ok, now to 1968, a bumber year which saw the release of Kiki's last four EPs; “La légende du petit sapin", "Kiki Va Piano" and ‘Kiki à l’opéra." More amazing Yé-yé goodness is thus released to the world! Highlights from these include Les Grenouilles, L'Affreux Jojo and the fuzz/recorder fest of Je Serai Musicien. Along the way these records were also compiled onto not one but too long players! After his final release Christian retreated from the studio to concentrate on his studies - however it wasn't too long before returned, this time as a drummer of the group Blue Rock in 1974 at the age of 17, until 1977. Sadly no further info on Christian is available - but his cousin Marc Ysaye acheived some success as a drummer with the rock group Machiavel - talented family indeed! Now onto what you can hear of this talented youngster - in the ink provided I have compiled the best cuts from each EP, which is practically all of them! Sadly I don't have his last record just yet, but I imangine it's just as great!




1 comment:

Robert Charbonnier said...

Great post, as always :)