When Yves Montand passed away on 9 November 1991, he was in the midst of preparing a mini-comeback, working on a series of concerts to be staged at Bercy stadium in Paris in May 1992. One of the singer's greatest motivations at the time was to revive the great French music-hall tradition of the past and show his young son, Valentin, what he had missed out on.

Interestingly enough, an entire generation of young French music fans had never associated Montand with music because - apart from a legendary tour comeback in '81/'82 - the singer had devoted himself to his acting career throughout the 70s and 80s. What's more, given the domination of pop and "variété" sounds from the 60s onwards, today's generation of music fans could have had no idea of the impact Yves Montand had on audiences when he reigned as king of the French music-hall in the 50s.

How Montant became Montand

The story of how "Montant", the son of Italian immigrants, rose to international stardom as Montand is recounted in Hervé Hamon and Patrick Rotman's brilliantly-detailed biography, Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié (Le Seuil 1990). So there is little need to retell the whole story here. Suffice to say that with his dark good looks, his natural charisma and his singing and acting talent, Yves Montand – like Aznavour before him – went on to become a living symbol of France and old-style music-hall.

Born in Italy in 1921, under the name Ivo Livi, Montand obtained French nationality at the age of 9 after his father, Giovanni, fled the fascist regime in his homeland and moved his family to Marseilles. Fascinated by show business from an early age, young Ivo took to the stage as a music-hall comedian at 17, making his public debut at the "Vallon des Tuves" in Marseilles under the stage name Montant (with a 't'). Before rising to fame as one of the most seductive French crooners of the age, Montant performed a clumsy song and dance routine, mimicking the stars of the day in an attempt to raise a laugh from the notoriously hard-to-please music-hall crowd.

In 1939, however, Montand's career entered a new phase when he brought the house down at L'Alcazar (Marseilles's most renowned club) with Dans les plaines du Far West, a song which went on to become the central piece of his act. From this point on, Montant waved goodbye to his mimic/stand-up routine and threw his energy into re-inventing himself as a singer. Even at this early stage of his career, Montant had a reputation for being a merciless perfectionist and he honed his act with painstaking care, working incessantly on gestures, elocution and vocals and choosing his repertoire and stage sets with great care.

With the support of his first tour organiser, Audiffred, Montand got to play second or third supporting act to the big stars of the post-war period at legendary Paris venues such as the ABC, L'Alhambra and l'Etoile. (No shirker when it came to hard work, Montand ended up performing nearly 20 months of concerts at L'Etoile between 1945 and 1962!)

Top of the bill

Over the next few years Montand made a series of encounters which were to have a long-lasting effect on his career. Edith Piaf took the budding young star under her wing, ironing out a few clumsy features in his act and advising him to dress in black (while falling in love with him at the same time!) Meanwhile, Montand hooked up with Bob Castella and Henri Crolla, two musicians from the jazz world who were both of Italian origin like himself. Castella and Crolla went on to become Montand's legendary accompanists, the first working with Montand up until his last concert, the second until his own death in 1960. Then, of course, there was Montand's encounter with the celebrated French poet and songwriter, Jacques Prévert, who went on to pen many of the singer's most celebrated including En sortant de l'école, Sanguine and Les Feuilles mortes.

The turning-point of Montand's career came in 1951 when he staged his first real 'one-man-show' at L'Etoile. The performance went down a storm with the audience and from that moment on, thousands of fans turned out to Montand's concerts, fighting tooth and nail for front-row seats. The former gauche-looking comedian who had entertained the crowd with light-weight song-and-dance routines had suddenly metamorphosed into a handsome crooner, adored by the intelligentsia and the musical mainstream alike. Renowned for his seductive vocals and his devastating smile, Montand went on to world domination, bringing the house down at shows in the USSR, (1956) the US (1959 and 1961), Canada (1959), Israel (1959), Japan (1961/62) and the UK (1962).

Meanwhile, 200,000 fans flocked to see Montand in concert during his six-month run at L'Etoile in the winter of '53/'54. And in 1981 - after a full 13-year absence from the French music scene (apart from a fund-raising concert for Chilean refugees in 1974) – when it was announced that Montand was about to make a major comeback at the Olympia the entire nation went wild. Confirming his status as a living music legend, Montand moved on from the Olympia to embark upon a triumphant world tour in the early 80s.

For a record company like Mercury/Universal, lucky enough to have inherited Montand's impressive back catalogue from the singer's original label, Philips, the anniversary of the singer's death presents an opportunity to cash in on the greatest hits. However, in this particular case, the boxed set of Montand memorabilia released on 6 November 2001 has proved to be a highly commendable compilation. Presented as a limited-edition set of 4 CDs (containing 97 songs, all of which have been 'cleaned up' and digitally re-recorded), the compilation is entitled Inédits, rares et Indispensables. However, the decision to divide Montand's classics into "unreleased material", "rare versions" and "essential listening" turns out to be a rather bizarre attempt at categorisation.

After all, the "essential listening" category could well be extended to include all of Montand's repertoire besides obvious classics such as Les Feuilles mortes and A bicyclette. The Mercury/Universal compilation does pull together some impressive "rare" versions, however, unearthing little-known versions of Montand classics performed at the Théâtre de l'Etoile in 1959 and three songs which appeared on "Polygram Italie" in 1992 (but were never released in France). Another highlight of the new Mercury/Universal compilation is the famous Chanson perdue (previously only available as a 4-track single released in 1964 or as part of a vinyl LP compilation released ten years later). But the decision to bill an entire section as "Inédits" seems to pose something of a problem as nearly all the songs on the album have already appeared on record at some point. (However, it is fair to say that several tracks appear in CD form for the first time, so it obviously depends on how you read Mercury/Universal's definition of "previously unreleased material!)

Whatever the case, the "Inédits" section of the compilation does contain some real gems, such as extracts from Montand's concert at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1982 and a handful of tracks from the album Montand chante Mc Neil. Then there are the wonderful songs from Montand 7 (an album originally released in 1967) where Montand performs the work of French poets: les Tuileries (Victor Hugo/Colette Magny), Je me souviens (Aragon/Philippe Gérard) and la Colombe de l'arche (Robert Desnos/Michel Legrand).

The press dossier claims Qui luxure (the theme song to Jacques Demy's 1988 film Trois Places pour le 26 is an "inédit" a cappella version. But, in reality, the song is accompanied on the piano and therefore, strictly speaking, not a cappella at all. (What's more, the original soundtrack to Demy's film has been available on CD for several years!) The promotional material also boasts that the compilation contains the first release of the "entire recording" of Montand's legendary concert at the Olympia in 1981. But, in actual fact, the only tracks which have never been released before (not even as part of the double live LP recorded at the time) are four short instrumental tracks, perhaps better described as "interludes".

Putting such exaggerations and false claims aside, however, there is no denying that the current compilation includes a wonderful biographical booklet (featuring some fabulous photos) . The Mercury/Universal compilation also gives fans the chance to sit back and enjoy six interviews recorded with Montand and friends at the dress rehearsal for his legendary Olympia 'comeback' concert on 13 October 1981.

Fans looking for real Montand "inédits" would do better to track down a copy of Plaisirs inédits (released on Universal in 1997). This compilation featured some real "previously unreleased" gems such as working copies of songs Montand was rehearsing for his planned 1992 comeback (e.g. Valentin). Other highlights of Plaisirs inédits include Montand performing unique covers of the Gershwin classic Someone to Watch Over Me and Maurice Chevalier's Ah! Si vous connaissiez ma poule. The Plaisirs inédits compilation also features new versions of old hits such as 1947 (written by Jorge Semprun and Philippe Gérard and originally released on a single in 1978) and a wonderful adaptation of Au Kabaret de la dernière chance (one of the rare contemporary songs to appear in Montand's repertoire).

Whether fans prefer to track down Plaisirs inédits (an album which, incidentally, went practically unnoticed when it appeared in '97) or sit back and enjoy the new compilation, Inédits, rares et Indispensables, one thing's for sure – Montand's amazing vocals and personal charisma live on a full decade after his death.