The 300-plus compositions penned by the versatile and warm-voiced French singer-songwriter Guy Béart epitomised the possibilities and limitations of the chanson genre and remain some of the most memorable and evocative of the 1950s, '60s and '70s in the Francophone countries.
The lullaby-like "L'Eau Vive" – from the soundtrack to the 1958 François Villiers drama of the same name, known to Anglo-Saxon art-house cinema-goers as Girl And The River – sent many a baby boomer to sleep, while the under-the-petticoats, nirvana-hinting double entendres of "Chandernagor", from 1957, reference Pondichéry and other "Comptoirs de L'Inde" – the French East India Company – in a deft and deceptive manner worthy of Ian Dury, and still raise a smile.
However, the subversive title track of his 1968 album La Vérité, whose verses tackle the Tour de France, John F Kennedy's assassination and Jesus Christ, before the take-no-prisoners refrain, "le premier qui dit la vérité, il doit être exécuté" – "the first one to tell the truth must be shot" – might just be the best of his manifold legacy.
"The lyrics and the music come to me in dreams, in the middle of the night," he said. "I wake up and quickly jot things down. It's not always easy to keep your partner happy, as you tend to wake her up." Even though songs like the nostalgic "Le Bal Chez Temporel" and the languid "Qu'On Est Bien" were recorded by such esteemed cabaret performers as Patachou, Zizi Jeanmaire and Juliette Gréco, his forte as a lyricist rather than a melody writer precluded him from reaching the same international audiences as his near-contemporaries Gilbert Bécaud, Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens.
Indeed, the boorish Serge Gainsbourg made that very point when he and Béart feuded during a December 1986 edition of the French TV show Apostrophes; Gainsbourg posited that chanson, especially when written on an acoustic guitar, as in Béart's case, was a minor art form, while piano compositions, and classical music generally, came from a more exalted place. Béart remained steadfast in his belief in the potential of chanson to be all things to all people, but failed to land a blow on Gainsbourg. Often replayed, the clip passed into French lore and remains a touchstone used to illustrate the continuing debate about the future of chanson.
A forward-thinking artist, Béart formed his own production company in 1963. He fought the Philips label for 15 years and eventually regained the rights to his early recordings. His daughter, the actress Emmanuelle Béart, who inherited his bright, piercing, striking, blue eyes, said: "In his own way, my father was a résistant. He never sold his soul to the devil."
Guy Béhart-Hanson claimed his was a difficult birth until his body was vigorously rubbed with Cognac and his body came to life. He had a peripatetic childhood as the family followed his accountant and business consultant father from Egypt to Greece, Lebanon and Mexico. In 1947, the 17-year-old Béart enrolled at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, and later studied the guitar, the mandolin and the violin at the Ecole Nationale de Musique. In parallel, he attended the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, gaining a degree in engineering and mathematics, which stood him in good stead when his father died in 1952 and he elected to become the family's breadwinner.
A relative latecomer and a reticent performer, in 1954 he began appearing at small Parisian venues like La Colombe and Le Port du Salut and attracted the attention of the music producer Jacques Canetti and the polymath Boris Vian, the team behind Philips. In 1958, Béart's first 10-inch record won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles-Cros and established him in his own right, as well as a source of repertoire for Marie Laforêt. Maurice Chevalier or Yves Montand.
But by 1963, yéyé singers like Johnny Hallyday and Claude François had made rock'n'roll palatable, taken over the French charts and made him a has-been. He resourcefully reinvented himself as the presenter of Bienvenue, a TV programme whose guests ranged from Brassens to Duke Ellington and Simon & Garfunkel and also featured comedians like Raymond Devos. His love-hate relationship with the media in general, and TV in particular, inspired songs like "Télé Attila", included on Le Meilleur Des Choses (2010), his last album of original material.
In the mid-'80s, he suffered from cancer and published an autobiography, L'Espérance Folle (Crazy Hope). Dubbed "the last troubadour", since he had outlived every chanteur apart from Charles Aznavour, he resided in a ramshackle, Bauhaus-style house, full of cats, musical instruments, books and memorabilia. In January he bowed out with a farewell four-hour concert at the Paris Olympia, 58 years after his first appearance there.
Guy Bhéart-Hanson, singer and songwriter: born Cairo 16 July 1930; married 1959 Cécile de Bonnefoy du Charmel (marriage dissolved; one daughter), 1963 Geneviève Galéa (marriage dissolved; one daughter); three sons; died Garches, near Paris 16 September 2015.
