Elvis In Paris

The release in 2019 of the vinyl album “Elvis in Paris” marked the 60th anniversary of Elvis’s 1959 visit to the French capital. Elvis had come at a time when the French were discovering two albums, “King Creole” (released at the end of 1958, and quickly reissued in 1959), and “Elvis Gold Records, Volume 2,” which included titles that had gathered multiple gold and platinum awards. In France, these gave rise to singles and “Super 45” discs that added to the huge celebrity that Elvis already enjoyed in France. The impact of those songs was such that almost all of them were adapted and issued in French versions. Here, most often in the form of alternate takes, you can find the titles that appeared on that vinyl album and were accompanied, as a bonus, by three songs of French origin and excerpts from press conferences given by Elvis ; and, an additional bonus, there are ten new alternate takes from the period. French fans have never forgotten that Paris was the only European capital that Elvis chose to visit… and he did so three times!

Hey Clockface was recorded in Helsinki, Paris and New York and mixed by Sebastian Krys in Los Angeles. Following the solo recording of, No Flag, Hetty O’Hara Confidential and We Are All Cowards Now at Suomenlinnan Studio, Helsinki by Eetü Seppälä in February 2020, Costello immediately traveled to Paris for a weekend session at Les Studios Saint Germain. Costello tells us, “I sang live on the studio floor, directing from the vocal booth. We cut nine songs in two days. We spoke very little. Almost everything the musicians played was a spontaneous response to the song I was singing. I’d had a dream of recording in Paris like this, one day.” The assembled album, Hey Clockface is “An Elvis Costello & Sebastian Krys Production” following on from their work together on Elvis Costello and The Imposters Grammy-winning album Look Now. The motion picture of We Are All Cowards Now by Eamon Singer and Arlo McFurlow features images of flowers and pistols, smoke and mirrors, tombstones and monuments, courage and cowardice, peace love and misunderstanding.

Status Quo are to release another batch of deluxe two and three CD releases via Universal Music. Under the spotlight this time are the '1+9+8+2' album released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the bands formation, 'Back To Back' from 1983, which features the last studio performances of original bass player Alan Lancaster before he left the band in late 1985, 'In The Army Now' (originally released in 1986) and its 1988 follow up, 'Ain't Complaining' which are all due for release by UMC/Mercury on Friday 28th September 2018.

Johnny Hallyday was France's first and only full-fledged rock star. Other French artists may have been influenced by rock & roll, but none was as beholden to the original sources, or as enduringly successful, as Hallyday. He was a distinctly French phenomenon, never achieving recognition in the U.S. or U.K.; certainly, part of the reason was that a good chunk of his repertoire consisted of French-language covers of early American rock hits.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Look Now (2018) {2CD Concord Deluxe Edition CRE00791}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 406 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 147 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 256 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2018 Elvis Costello / Concord Records | CRE00791
Rock / Adult Alternative Pop-Rock / Indie Rock

Elvis Costello had already taken a few steps from the "angry young man" persona that dominated his first two albums by the time he began work on 1982's Imperial Bedroom, but that was the disc where his evolution from brash upsetter to gifted pop craftsman began in earnest. In 2017, Costello staged a concert tour in which he re-imagined the songs from that LP, and while that may or may not have put those tunes and their style back into his mind, 2018's Look Now certainly is an extension of the mature and literate pop songwriting that he first fully embraced in that material.

Gilbert Becaud - Fais Moi Signe
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 213 MB | Full Artwork: 44 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: BMG Ariola # 260 329 | Country/Year: France 1989
Genre: Pop | Style: Chanson, Ballad, French Pop

"Known as "Monsieur 100,000 Volts" for his dynamic stage presence, Gilbert Bécaud was one of France's most popular singers during the 1950s and '60s, and enjoyed a career of more than four decades in show business. (…) his primary impact came as a singer. In an era when cabaret vocalists remained largely stationary on-stage, Bécaud's energetic showmanship drove his audiences into a frenzy, as they strove to match his boundless enthusiasm. He became a regular presence at Paris' legendary Olympia concert theater, where he performed over 30 times – more than any other artist. A notoriously heavy smoker, Bécaud succumbed to lung cancer in 2001, but kept performing almost right up to the end.

With her pre-bop piano style, cool but sensual singing, and fortuitously photogenic looks, Diana Krall took the jazz world by storm in the late '90s. By the turn of the century she was firmly established as one of the biggest sellers in jazz. Her 1996 album All for You was a Nat King Cole tribute that showed the singer/pianist's roots, and since then she has stayed fairly close to that tradition-minded mode, with wildly successful results…