Only three years after the low-key album, "Ensemble", and six years after the success of "Quand t'es petit dans le Midi", Gilbert Bécaud is back. His new album, "Faut faire avec..." is a collection of little modern joys. This October 24th, Bécaud will be 72: Happy Birthday, Gilbert!

By jove, what a beautiful record! We loved Bécaud. Forty years later, the guy is still hearty and he manages to make people laugh or cry, it depends, without any difficulty. The heart of "Faut faire avec…" is indisputably Corsican: "The people of the island" begins like a hymn from I Muvrini (the Corsican band), bagpipe included. It's normal, it's a declaration of love to the Corsicans, with the words of Pierre Delanoë and Petru Guelfucci, whose exceptional voice can be found singing and in choirs. Bécaud sings against people's ideas: Adventure/It's their domain/And it's their problem/and it's their history"...
Just after Corsica, comes Italy: "Felicita" inspired by one of the most "Brelian" -reference to Jacques Brel- pieces by Lucio Dalla. A story of a past life, guitars, mandolins. An appointment with death with oblivion too... Bécaud's voice, still true to form, hardly rasping from cigarettes and their consequences, reaches the height of emotion here. And so goes the album: sweet and out of touch stories ("Chante-moi" with strong hit potential), out of date pleasures ("When we dance") and especially "Légende des Siecles" by Pierre Delanoé, "Dieu est mort", a solid cover of the great Bécaud of the Seventies encircled by guitars in the middle of storms...Because this record is a record of today, very acoustic, recorded with a small band. Bécaud knew how to surround himself: "Faut faire avec..." is produced by André Manoukian, the ex-mentor of Liane Foly- and managed by Jean Mareska who became famous through Jean-Jacques Goldman. If the Cubans have Compay Segundo, we have Gilbert Bécaud.

Jean-Claude Demari
Gilbert Becaud - Faut faire avec… (Odéon-EMI)

One year after the French football team's 1998 World Cup Victory at the Grand Stade, Céline Dion also wanted to win the public's heart. A bit lost in the middle of a central stage devised so that everyone could see her, the Quebecois singer came to show her professionalism once more by doing the songs from her repertoire in English and in French.
Three months later, her record company is releasing the complete package (CD, Video, boxed set) to make you feel like you were once again at the concert that was without a doubt the musical event of Summer '99 in France. So, you mustn't expect a record overflowing with creativity or artistic extravagances. Everything is measured, served up by musicians who are of course extremely professional and backup singers who cut the mustard, as we say! The choir from the Hauts-de-Seine (in the Parisian suburbs) came to lend their voice to "Let's talk about love", the title that opens the CD and you must wait for "J'irai où tu iras" to see the inevitable and omnipresent Jean-Jacques Goldman who Céline can visibly not do without when she sings in France. A medley of older songs (from "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" to "Ziggy") comes to remind us of the beginnings of a career that went beyond the hopes of the singer. Because Céline knows where she comes from and insists on remembering the road that she travelled until the intergalactic hit (if such a thing exists) "My heart will go on", extract from the film soundtrack of "Titanic" which ends the concert and the CD.
This live album is like a present and not an adieu, but a see you again because the international star has decided to take a break in her career starting on January 1st 2000. Until then, she is not going to rest on her laurels because on November 16th an album in English "All the way" will be released. A few concerts in the United States will precede the mega show planned at the Centre Molson in Montreal on December 31st 1999. So there's enough to keep Céline busy before her break, which should last two to three years according to her.

Valérie Passelègue
Céline Dion - Au Coeur du stade (Columbia)