"The French language can do anything, it can even swing." Ever since Super Nana in 1974, Michel Jonasz has been proving his credo. He adds, “If my songs swing, it’s not by chance: I used to buy records by Georges Brassens and Ray Charles and those two did something to me.” Just after turning sixty (on 21 January), he has released Chanson française, with its ten covers of French chanson greats. There are three by Brassens (L’Orage, Les Copains d’abord, Les Amoureux des bancs publics), two by Ferré (Avec le temps, La Mémoire et la Mer), two by Brel (La Chanson des vieux amants, Fernand), one Nougaro (Armstrong), one Prévert-Kosma (Les Feuilles mortes), and one by Piaf (La Foule). With jazz arrangements that sometimes exude Latin American tones and at other times remain discreet, Chanson française is the perfect playground for Jonasz.

RFI Musique: Since when have you been singing other people’s songs?
Michel Jonasz: You could say that this project was born a long time ago, when I was starting out singing – perhaps even before then – towards the end of the sixties. I used to love sitting at the piano and doing Brassens my way, making it a bit groovy and adding a little rhythmic pulse to it, bossa nova, blues, Latin American sounds. That’s probably where the beginnings of this record lie. For years I used to say to myself that I should do a record with my rendition of Brassens songs, but I never did. I was in a period where I particularly wanted to do my own albums. And then Maxime (Ed.: Le Forestier) did his homage to Brassens (the live album of 1979) and others followed suit.

You have said that after Chanson française you will do some disks in homage to tzigane music and the blues. Why?
Because they are the types of music that inspired me. My childhood and youth were marked by Piaf, after my father took me to see her sing at Olympia; by tzigane music, when I saw how my parents’ and grandparents’ faces transformed when they listened to it; by the poetry of Brassens; by the blues, Ray Charles, and Brel too. With Brel, I understood the power of performance and that being on stage meant sweating and spluttering and not waiting to be clapped before moving on to the next song. And then Ferré, because of his emotional force, the tearing apart and the feeling in his voice, which is linked to tzigane music.

You have done a cover of the most classic of classic French songs, Les Feuilles mortes. Which version is a reference for you? Is it Yves Montand’s?
Since I had this idea of paying homage to people whom I have liked and who have inspired me to sing, and at the same time of celebrating French chanson as a whole, I couldn’t leave out Les Feuilles mortes, which is known the world over. And then there are Prévert and Kosma. It is Montand’s version that I listened to but, over and above the versions, it is such a symbolic song.

How did you choose which songs to cover?
I knew them all, of course. I took the complete works of Brassens, Brel and Ferré and just sat down and looked at the titles, even if I did listen to some of them again. There are a lot of songs that I love in there but that wasn’t enough, I needed to be able to see myself singing them. And then the period was important. I didn’t want to sing from the latest Ferré album or one of Brassens’ last songs. I stuck to the end of the fifties and the early sixties, my childhood and youth, like La Foule, Les Amoureux des bancs publics and L’Orage. There is one exception and that’s Avec le temps [released in 1970]. It wasn’t just a question of modernising the old songs by adding new rhythms unless it went to serve the cause. And the cause is to respect the songs’ emotion and their stories.

Apart from Fernand by Jacques Brel, the covers you do are all huge hits that everyone in France has heard of. Aren’t you wary of only singing the classics?
With the exception of Les Feuilles mortes, I chose the songs I did because I wanted to sing them. And in fact, there aren’t many other songs that I do want to sing. With one reserve: I could have put a lot more Brassens songs in there.

Do you already know when you are going to bring out the next two instalments of the homage triptych?
This was the easiest one, because it is basically all cover versions. The others will be original compositions, even if in concert I will doubtlessly do some classics, like Hoochie Coochie Man by Muddy Waters, which I did in my last show.