"Jacques Brel was undisputedly the greatest singer of the century," declares Serge Lama in his preface to Eddy Przybylski's new biography Jacques Brel, la valse à mille rêves. Lama not only acknowledges the general debt the music world owes  Brel, but his own personal debt to the Belgian 'chanson' pioneer explaining how, as a young singer, he was completely bowled over by the force of Brel's songwriting, his theatrical stage performances and his artistic temperament.

Obviously, Brel was not the only influential music star of his day. The 1940s and 1950s witnessed the burgeoning of a number of legendary 'chanson' icons and role models who awed the young debutants attempting to follow in their wake. There was Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Félix Leclerc, Juliette Gréco, Charles Trenet and his freedom-embracing songs, the gritty realism of Edith Piaf, the popular entertainment appeal of Maurice Chevalier. However, Brel seemed to strike a particular chord with singers and songwriters looking to examine the inner workings of humanity and expose the secrets lurking behind the social mask. Music fans may remember Brel best for Ne me quitte pas, but at heart Ne me quitte pas is just a sublimely written, sublimely moving song. The classics that impressed Brel's songwriting contemporaries more were Ces gens-là, Au suivant, La Chanson des vieux amants, Les Vieux – songs that explored the entire spectrum of human suffering, frustration, pettiness and compromise.

Brel delved into the whole great "tragi-comedy" of life, the same "tragi-comedy" that had inspired celebrated French authors all the way from Balzac down to Simenon and Bazin. And, in the process, the Belgian 'chanson' star spawned his own musical heirs who continued working in the "Bréliste" tradition. In 1965, Brel wrote a short preface in the notes accompanying a debut album by Henri Tachan, a young café waiter turned singer. Tachan penned his own 'chanson' critiques on society - Les Pédés (Homosexuals), Les Femmes (Women), L’Alliance (The Wedding Ring), Dancing, Josy and Les Wagons de première classe (First Class Carriages) - just after Brel's famous attack on Les Bourgeois. More than a decade on, Pierre Bachelet acknowledged the fact that his first big hit, Les Corons, had been influenced by the melody of Ne me quitte pas and the lyrics of Plat pays and Les Flamandes (the latter an example of a lighter, more classic side to Brel).

When Les Têtes Raides, a band who rapidly established themselves as the anarchic figureheads of indie 'chanson', emerged in the early '80s, it soon became clear that there was an equal amount of Jacques Brel and The Clash in the band's angry electric guitar riffs. As for the accordion - which became the emblem of the indie 'chanson' movement in the '80s - this was played less in the style of retro "musette" associated with Grandad's generation and more in the wild, unleashed style of Brel's accordionists Jean Corti (on Amsterdam) and Marcel Azzola (on Vesoul). And the disgust Brel conveyed in his incendiary lyrics to Ces gens-là was clearly felt in Christian Olivier's songwriting for Les Têtes Raides, especially when he penned Les Bas quartiers (a track that featured on the group's 1990 album Mange tes morts).

But while a generation earlier Henri Tachan and Pierre Bachelet had absorbed influences from one part of Brel's work, it is not necessarily the same Brel that has  inspired contemporary artists such as Les Têtes Raides, Bénabar and Florent Pagny (who recently recorded his own tribute album Florent Pagny chante Jacques Brel). Bénabar, for instance, is a fervent admirer of Brel's songwriting and his charismatic on-stage performances, but he has also drawn on other more modern sources of inspiration such as The Blues Brothers and James Brown to forge his own style of showmanship.

"It doesn't matter what you're trying to do, it doesn't matter whether you knew him or not - if you're an artist your ultimate goal is to be Brel! Brel embodied everything that's good, and also not so good, about an artist. There was a real force in his songwriting, a real force in his performance. He threw himself body and soul into his work. In fact, he wore himself out in the end precisely because of his commitment to pushing things all the way!" Brel, it seems, has not been reincarnated in any one particular singer or musician. It would be truer to say that a little piece of the Belgian 'chanson' star and his songs lives on in all of us.