Jean Guidoni emerged on the French music scene in the twilight years of the 70s, when the glitz and glamour of mainstream 'variété' were wearing thin as a new generation of music fans woke up to the rebel verve of punk. Guidoni introduced a daring new vein in his songwriting, singing of crimes of passion, the curse of sexuality, and marginality and its associated evils. In short, his career has been full of violent outbursts and provocations of all kinds. But on his new album, Trapèze, Guidoni leaves his angry young man image behind, delving into a more personal register with a series of intimate songs which have something of the confessional about them. While he occasionally slips into the violent imagery of his former years,singing of "supping in the sewer with rats," the majority of Guidoni's new album mines a softer, more reflective vein. Trapèze is the album of a mellowed fifty-something who has finally understood that, beneath the fundamental singularities of his songwriting, lies a universality that can be shared with all.
Guidoni is about to hit the road again with a simple concert show (as opposed to the grand spectaculars he staged in the past). After a residency and a concert in Beirut and two concerts in Rezé, near Nantes, he performed at the Théâtre de l’Européen in Paris in October and is set to play three dates at Le Café de la Danse in December. Guidoni is also due to kick off a major French tour at the start of 2005. Meanwhile, fans can enjoy Trapèze, his new album written in collaboration with novelists Jean Rouaud and Marie Nimier and composer Daniel Lavoie, and produced by Edith Fambuena (the female guitar half of Les Valentins).

RFI Musique: Your fans heard most of the songs on the new album for the first time when you performed at the Théâtre Silvia-Monfort in Paris in July 2003. You certainly took your time about going into the studio!
Jean Guidoni: Well, it'd been such a long time since I'd last made an album, so I had plenty of time to sit down and think about things and consider whether I was going to give up CDs for good. When it comes down to it, it's a lot easier to get a live show up and running, because that's only a matter of me and my own energy. But when you do an album, you have to stimulate other people's desire, then put together a team of people who want to work on the project and find a record company willing to finance the whole affair…
Usually, I'm prepared to break down any door, overcome any kind of obstacle in my path, because I believe in doing what I want no matter what it takes. But this time round, I sat back and waited and let things come to me instead. I heard Jean Rouaud mention on a programme one day that he'd like to try his hand at songwriting. I'd just finished reading his novels and I thought to myself, "Well, why not?" Anyway, I ended up contacting Jean through Laurent Balandras, at Universal, and he came along to see me with Marie Nimier. We didn't originally sit down and talk about songs for an album. The idea was to come up with material for a live show.
I have to admit, Jean and Marie weren't big fans of mine at all, so they didn't feel they had to work with a certain image of me in mind. They based things on the Jean Guidoni they'd met in person, not some public image. So they didn't have to work within an existing universe; they were free to invent their own. Anyway, they wrote a couple of songs together and then they started really getting into things. After that, Daniel Lavoie came on board the project - Edith Fambuena had already arrived by that point. I'd been wanting to work with Les Valentins for a while, but it seemed a pretty unlikely prospect. But we met up and they went away and made demos of two songs and it was incredible, they instantly touched on the sound I wanted to move towards. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Les Valentins split up at that point and Edith stayed on to work with me. So the final line-up revolved around Jean Rouaud, Marie Nimier, Daniel Lavoie, Edith Fambuena and me. Wagram was the first record label to show an interest in the project, so I ended up signing with them for this album.

In the CD booklet that comes with Trapèze, each of the songs is associated with a short text, which reads almost like a mini novella. What's the idea behind the texts?
It's basically a continuation of the work I'd started with Edith. I didn't want to restrict her by giving her precise instructions about the arrangements. That's not my job and, besides, I wanted her to be as free as possible in her work. Anyway, one day, Edith turned round and asked me what I thought about when I was up on stage. And what happens is, if I start feeling nervous, I invent this imaginary décor in my head as I sing. As a result of that, we came up with the idea that once the music and the lyrics to a song were finished, I'd sit down and give her my imaginary musical and visual take on it. It was from that that Edith wrote the texts we included in the CD booklet.

When you performed your old show, Crime passionnel, at Le Cabaret Sauvage in 2001, you seemed to undergo a major change. You were no longer Jean Guidoni, spokesperson for a community, a generation and a sensibility that hadn't existed in French 'variété' before. It was as if you'd moved on from a collective position to something much more personal…
Yes, and that became glaringly obvious when I decided to take Crime passionnel out on the road again twenty years after its première. I love the show and there was no question of me not doing it again. But performing it, I felt there was something that no longer corresponded to who I am and how I relate to others. Those days are gone now and I don't represent certain things any more.

What's interesting now is that, for the first time in your career, you perform on stage without special stage décor or make-up…
I guess what I'm trying to do is retranscribe on stage what I experienced with the album. I want things to be simple and direct, without too much fuss! I don't think the new songs really lend themselves to theatricality and grand gestures anyway. Right now, I'm seeking a new means of communication, a more direct way of reaching people. And musically speaking, there's a different energy going on, too. I spent so many years cut off from musicians. It was basically the singer up front, centre stage, and sometimes we didn't even see the musicians during a show. Right now, I feel I want to be with the musicians again and form a real group on stage. This is more about doing a concert than a show.

Is it easy to live through such a profound change in yourself and your music?
Well, it doesn't appear to have done me any harm! Things are moving on, but the good thing is I've got time to stand back from it all and look at where things are going. Whatever happens, I've got nothing to lose!

Jean Guidoni Trapèze (Wagram) 2004