Louis Philippe

Louis Philippe may still be best known as a purveyor of creamy pop confections for Mike Alway's wonderfully eccentric él label, yet his work continued to deepen and develop long after él bit the dust in 1989. He once described his music as "covering the range from pure bubblegum to symphonic sweep, with detours via jazz and soul along the way. A typical album might mix influences from vintage pop, French chanson, Ravel, bossa nova, Duke Ellington, the Shirelles, or the Beach Boys, while classical instruments and intricate backing vocals often feature in the arrangements." Yet although his records should, by rights, appeal to anyone who appreciates the virtues of an elegantly crafted melody swathed in dense harmonies, Philippe's heartfelt and sophisticated records have always struggled to find an audience beyond a loyal -- and far-flung -- coterie of fans. Undaunted, however, he has continued to make records on his own terms, though at an ever greater remove from the mainstream recording industry. Born Philippe Auclair in Normandy in 1959, he studied and taught philosophy in Paris before releasing his first EP as the Border Boys in 1985. Not long after, he left France, and his subsequent band, the Arcadians, to pursue his dream of being a songwriter in the land that spawned his beloved Kinks. Like many French pop composers, he believed English to be the lingua franca of rock & roll and, thanks to an excellent English teacher and intensive study of Ray Davies' work, was soon writing lyrics that betrayed nary a trace of their author's origins. It was Mike Alway who persuaded Auclair to change his name, in accordance with the él philosophy that all the label's artists should adopt exotic characters based upon their own personalities and backgrounds. The name Louis...