Johnny Hallyday, the 66-year-old “French Elvis,” as he has become known, has just emerged from Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. The L.A. Times had a write-up of the O.J.-like media camp French news agencies had erected near the hospital, and has some good quotes of bemused Angelinos asking just what the big deal is.
Indeed, although he has sold over 100 million records, putting him in the same league as Billy Joel and David Bowie, he remains largely unknown outside the Hexagon. Perhaps it is not entirely his fault. A longstanding philosophical conundrum of French society asks why the country has never produced a good rock band. It's probably because the French’s English has never been good enough (according to a recent study of European countries' English speaking abilities, the French rank behind Lithuania). Thus, as France's biggest ever pop-star, Johnny has borne the responsibility of being France’s sole ambassador of French popular music (leaving aside the chanteurs) to the American consciousness. And as is the case with many elements of French pop culture, Americans’ have come to view him as something of an amusing curio (though perhaps such an attitude is intrinsic to any reportage of a foreign culture...). I myself wrote a paper for my French language instruction class at Sciences Po on Johnny, in which I referred to him as a “grotesque, Gallic simulacrum of an American rock frontman.” More recently, he has become known as an ardent Sarkozy supporter, as well an apparent tax exile, which has further alienated him from younger and less familiar audiences.
Listening to him now though, I think I’d tone down my harsh assessment. While there little that is original in his early music and image, he certainly helped to spread American rock n’ roll values throughout Europe in the 1960s:
Ultimately, if he was good enough for Hendrix, he’s good enough for me:
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