Country in Johnny Hallyday's repertoire9 reading minutes

Little-known and little-acknowledged in his work, country music forms the backdrop to Johnny Hallyday's repertoire. If you're looking for something new to discover, it's well worth delving into this side of the rocker. He has always lived and breathed country, and it's quite possible that Johnny's artistic universe can be understood in terms of this musical genre.

«I'm a »variété' singer revisited and corrected by rock'n'roll", declared Johnny Hallyday in a well-crafted phrase at a recent TV interview in 1974. But Johnny wasn't just that. Johnny was a multitude of genres, which can be divided into two categories: the musical genres he embraced for the pleasure of the public, and those he truly loved, and in fact never left.

Country is one of Johnny's favorite genres. First of all, we mustn't forget that country, along with rhythm and blues, is one of the sources of rock'n'roll, as the French rocker himself says in The Promised Land, Philippe Manœuvre's account of his 2014 American tour:

«Before, country music was all dry guitars and pedal steel. Today, they've electrified everything, guitars and fiddles. Country is the mother of rock'n roll and blues. Even in the early days, rock'n roll was a combination of country and rockabilly.»

Johnny was a great connoisseur of country music. And above all, a great fan of the artists who have carried this music throughout their careers. With Garth Brooks at the very top. «I listen to Garth Brooks, but the French don't listen to much country music,» Johnny Hallyday remarked to his pal Philippe Manœuvre. This sentence sums it all up: if when you think of Johnny, you don't necessarily think of country, it's because it's not a genre the French are fond of. So Johnny didn't include it in his musical universe. Rock mixed with French chanson, that's it. what he has worn and which has finally carried off. But beware of career summaries; Hallyday sprinkled his entire repertoire with country songs, when he wasn't making a whole album of them!

Two entire albums of country music

Johnny has released no less than two country albums. Country-Folk-Rock in 1972 and The Promised Land in 1975.

It all began when he met Michel Mallory, who became his regular lyricist for ten years. Mallory, just as passionate about country music as Johnny Hallyday, wrote an entire album of songs for Hallyday, delving into the American vein they both loved. The result is an admirable, raw, coherent body of work, featuring such nuggets as My hand to the fire, Hello US USA (soundtrack of the film I gave it my all and composed by the boss himself!), There's nothing like that girl or Joe, the city and me. The atmosphere is exactly as you'd imagine it to be in the United States that Johnny so often fantasized about. It's the very place in which the singer received his musical education and which, as a brilliant magician, he now creates in his turn. In fact, he really lived there to the end, in those lands, in that country music, as he recounts on RTL in 2013:

«When I'm driving my car listening to country music, I really feel like I'm in the States, you can really feel the great outdoors.»

Three years on Country-Folk-Rock, Hallyday and his lyricist Mallory are back with The Promised Land, an album recorded during their stay in Nashville. A delicious album-cliché! It features backing singer Nanette Workman, whom Johnny had spotted with Joe Cocker - whom he admired and whose vocal art he certainly drew inspiration from. He steals Lee Lewis' song Got You On My Mind and adapts two songs by Kris Kristofferson. Above all, in this album Johnny accentuates all the clichés of the country music and the western - he even wears a cowboy hat on the album cover. The «I» in the songs, for example, urges you to «watch out for Indians», to «[take] your horses, your wife and your kids» as you venture west on the gold rush...

A very telling anecdote, relayed by Le Point, Johnny will force Nanette Workman and Michel Mallory to record their own albums on site. Passion passion passion!

«It was a wonderful time when Johnny lived for music alone,» recalls Jean-François Chenut in the same article in Le Monde. Point. However, despite the quality of this 1975 opus, it wasn't really a success, although this is still commendable for a country, France, which is not a fan of country music. Hallyday, as is his wont, followed this up with a mainstream album, as he would do many years later with Waiting in 2012 after the mixed success of the rock'n roll and blues album Never alone (2011). The album is once again monumental, but country has given way to French variety. It is Behind the love (1976), featuring the song of the same name, as well as other cult titles such as Don't play rock'n roll for me, Requiem for a madman and Gabrielle.

Read also | Tribute to Jean-Philippe Smet

While these songs enjoyed immediate success and a far greater posterity than the tracks from Country-Folk-Rock, This album is not a passing mistake in Johnny's repertoire. An attentive listener can see that, whatever the period, Hallyday has always made a point of slipping country ballads or more rhythmic folk-country songs into albums of a completely different nature - from blues to the smoothest pop.

For example, the pearl I cried on my guitar in the album I love you I love you I love you (1974), consisting entirely of ballads, William's America, present on the posthumous album, or The city of lost souls in Destination Vegas (1996), a sublime ballad featured on the remastered compilation Johnny History - Country (2012). If you think about it, it's precisely variety that makes it possible to integrate a country song into a rock, blues, folk or pop album.

When Johnny lets loose

There is a musical interest in this little-known selection of some 1500 songs (!) recorded by Johnny. Or rather, the interest of the country songs «made in Hallyday» lies not so much in their music than their musicality. A nuance of the utmost importance, since musicality depends to some extent on the sonic and artistic ambience created by the singer. Listening to songs unknown to the general public, such as The story of Bobby Mc Gue or Joe, the city and me, or better-known titles such as There's nothing like that girl, The gold rush or The Promised Land, we find the same atmosphere. That of a kid who gives everything to live his own America. In his country albums, Johnny lets loose. A bit like the psychedelic blues of the album River... open your bed, released in 1969.

Read also | In 1969, Johnny Hallyday's psychedelic blues

In reality, he's just another Johnny. Johnny Hallyday - and this has been his strength - has remade himself in every era, embracing every musical genre, every attitude, every physiological appearance. As he himself said. One constant, however: his deliciously redneck side, sometimes manifested in the America of the cowboys which he believed in until his death, sometimes through his love of simple things, even in the midst of the greatest luxury, sometimes through his sauciness bordering on sexism, found in the lyrics of his country albums, and even more so in his attitudes as a performer. It's not that Johnny didn't love women. He just loved them differently than his buddies. Friendship was everything to him.

What's Johnny getting at with this kind of song? He wants to create a show, of course. He also wants to convey emotions. But also, no doubt, to kick the anthill of good taste. It's been said over and over again, even here: Johnny has adapted to each era. But he adapted - no doubt unconsciously - to each era so that he could always be out of step with it. Look at the wave of peace and love: Johnny, this anti-hippie, Johnny has always laughed at the odd one out. Look at his latest collaborations with the ever-popular Yodelice: Johnny has taken the opportunity to do the good old rock'n'roll he loves. Playing with fashion codes to attract people back to his first and most faithful loves: that was Mister Johnny's great strength.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

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Johnny Hallyday 
Country-Folk-Rock
Mercury
1972
13 titles

Johnny Hallyday 
The Promised Land
Mercury
1975
13 titles