Michel Berger

Michel Berger ranks among France pop music's most acclaimed and prolific songwriters, even though most of his most successful works have been made famous by other artists, from France Gall to Johnny Hallyday. Co-creator of Starmania, composer of several film scores, involved in humanitarian causes, Berger was a giver. He offered French pop some of his most renowned radio-friendly yet quality tunes, and thankfully won over his shyness to express his warm, exhilarated melodies with his round, soft, and reassuring vocal texture. Two of his most famous singles pay respect to some of his idols: the Jerry Lee Lewis-inspired "Il Jouait du Piano Debout" and the Elton John-inspired "La Groupie du Pianiste." His 1992 heart attack came as a shock to the music business and French people in general. Berger, born Michel Hamburger in Paris on November 28, 1947, was raised by a renowned medical doctor father and a classical musician mother, and began playing piano in his early childhood. He quickly was taken by an urge of learning other instruments as well as arrangement, orchestration, composing skills, and theory. Though his formation was classical, and like many musicians of his generation, Berger fell in love with the rising sounds of R&B and rock & roll. Slowed down by his shyness, he first wrote and worked for other artists, his first, kind of unlikely, collaboration being Bourvil's "La Girafe." Pretty soon, though, he began to release a series of singles under his own name and got himself an artistic director job at Pathé-Marconi's, for which he produced Jean-François Mickaël's hit single "Adieu Jolie Candy." In 1970, he produced Jeremy Faith's single "Jesus" during a Los Angeles stay, started producing Véronique Sanson's albums in the early '70s, and '60s-fame Françoise Hardy's...