Franck Pourcel
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« In the strange world of show-business where you can find many con-artists and wind merchants, there is a distinguished man, whose look is more that of a diplomat than an artist: Franck Pourcel is discreet, modest and without pretence, this quiet man with a handsome silhouette has recorded and sold more records than most French artists combined together. His career spans the world: from Limelight and Blue Tango, to the Anthem for Concorde, and finally Only You, he is the first French conductor to have become famous in the USA. I do not desesperate to welcome him on my TV show with his 80 musicians. »
That’s the way Michel Drucker described Franck in the seventies, before inviting him twice on TV with his orchestra, in 1981 and 1984. Michel liked to tell the story of my father, who was often taken for an American, and the rising of « this calm man in the middle of French Variety ».
Franck Pourcel was his real name: last name originally from Italy, first name a tribute to the composer César Franck. He was born in Marseille on August 11, 1913, and he died on November 12, 2000. His father was a technician but also a musician in the Navy in Marseille. At six years old, he began learning music and his father sent him to study the violin at the Conservatoire de Marseille, and drums too because he loved jazz. Then he went to the Conservatoire in Paris: « My dream was to become a famous soloist. After my studies and the army, I had to work in order to live »
He then came back to Marseille where he worked in theaters, one of them the Opera, and at night he played drums in nightclubs. This explains, how, later, his orchestrations will be based on strings and percussions.
In 1939 he married Odette.
During that period, Franck was the musical director of some singers, among them Yves Montand, and he was hired for 3 months by Bruno Coquatrix, the future manager of the Olympia de Paris, to be the conductor of the famous singer Lucienne Boyer ; he would in fact stay 8 years and tour around the world with her.
But he always had a dream: his own orchestra, which could freely express his musical feelings.
He always worked toward this dream, but between the dream and the reality, it was very difficult: records companies were not keen on hiring 50 musicians! « At that time, creating an orchestra with 50 musicians sounded nuts, but I wanted it. After many refusals, I moved to United States ».
So, the family emigrated to live in New York in 1952, and between small jobs, and the delay to obtain the Musicians Union Card, that he will eventually get, he kept looking for a producer. But, it’s a French one, Maurice Tézé, who will called him in 1953 to ask him to get back to Paris in order to produce his first record Blue Tango and the follow up Limelight.
People took him immediately for an American, super quality label , and he instantly became famous: « Had I used the name of « Marius » Pourcel (his second first name), maybe my career would have turned short » he said with a smile and in the accent of Provence.
It was the start of his long career, and all the French singers including Aznavour, Tino Rossi, Gloria Lasso, Bécaud, Montand, Trenet, Danielle Darrieux, were eager to be accompanied by the American. Once, I opened the door to an actor who had just appeared in West Side Story, and wanted to produce his first record with Franck : George Chakiris.
Franck was very serious, dedicated to his work and tireless; he was a perfectionist, writing his arrangements himself, choosing the songs, the musicians, the studio, the editing, and the composition of the cover. He was so meticulous that sometimes his musicians thought he was a tyrant! He revitalized the violin. Jazz and popular music had little by little succeeded in removing the violin from any importance in musical entertainment. Franck, believing in the violin’s versatility and enormous possibilities, constantly fought this trend. Needless to say he was successful!. To pronounce the word « violin » is to touch the heart of Franck ; « For me, the violin is the instrument closest to the human voice. I don’t play it, I make it sing. It should be considered a vocal instrument, an instrument that speaks to the heart of man ».
Between 1954 and 1957, he kept recording: 9 LPs in 3 years. He creates the series Amour Danse et Violons, which include 54 LPs.
But the Americans had kept an eye on him, and he went back to Hollywood at Capitol to record albums for the American market, like Our Paris, French Touch, French Sax, French wine-Drinking music and La Femme (composed by Les Baxter) with its graceful and scandalous nude cover. He became « Franck Pourcel and the French Fiddlers », « Franck Pourcel and his Parisians strings » or « The Rockin’ strings Orchestra » !!
In 1959, he recorded Only You, 2 years after the fantastic success of the title by The Platters. But arranging it « à la Franck Pourcel » he gave it a second wind.
All my life I’ll remember my father and I arriving at Capitol Tower, a mythic place in Hollywood,. The song was played all day long inside the building, but the record had a tiny distortion. He was furious, and I thought that he was going to have a nervous breakdown, until someone told him that he was going to have a big hit; he would sell more than 3 millions copies, be on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks, and become the first European orchestra leader to sell more than 1 million records in the US.
In 1958, he recorded an LP with the Viennese’s Waltzes, and then decided to lead his « Variety » public to the discovery and appreciation of popular classical pieces. With his « Pages Celebres » he leds the sale at EMI Classics, but he felt no special vanity from this, for he considered himself at the service of music. He would record 17 LPs with the most famous classical orchestras like the London Symphony Orchestra, The London Philharmonic, The Lamoureux Orchestra, The BBC Orchestra…..
In 1979, following the evolution of the recording techniques, the series came to be called Classics in Digital. « Adapting pop songs or classical pieces is a very delicate work because you have to dose the effects. I studied classics, and I am persuaded that if Mozart or Beethoven were here today they would wrote their music in a different arrangement. For them or the Variety, I write a kind of translation, according to my style, I think I am not betraying them. I often compare music with cooking. For the same recipe a chef can do something personal, the name of the dish remains the same, but the taste is different. Same thing with a score…. I was lucky in my life to be able to succeed in interpreting, my way, some music composed by others. I arrange it (or disarrange), and the original composers are happy ».
« Franck has the talent to ennoble the most simple melodies…..entering his music was and still is like entering the Pantheon » said Salvatore Adamo
A few of his musicians started a career on their own: » Michel Legrand was playing piano, when he was young. In my orchestra I had Raymond Lefevre, Paul Mauriat and Jean-Claude Casadessus, at that time playing percussions in my classical recordings ».
Between 1956 and 1972 he was the regular conductor for France at the Eurovision Song Contest, and he toured a lot in Japan, USA, South America, and appeared on TV specials, all around the world.
A very discreet man, he never played up his personal or professional life. His record company has always had difficulty to write a biography mentioning how many records he sold (the sales if they were to be piled, one on top of the other, would represent 20 times the height of the Eiffel Tower), or how many gold records he got throughout the 58 countries where his albums were released. He was proud of his trophies, but didn’t talk about them. He smashed all sales records for Europeans orchestras without fanfare or boosting. He rather preferred to show his back directing the orchestra than his face to a camera. He rarely put his picture on the front of a cover « to recognize someone you have to appear on TV or movies. The public knows my name, I was the first one to do this kind of music in Europe ». Nevertheless I watched him in 1984, during the pageant of Miss Mexico. He was President of the jury, and all the beautiful girls wanted to sit on his laps. He did not look unhappy!!!
His records have been exported to 58 countries; »I am going to surprise some people, but I have been the number 1 in the exportation of French records for 20 years (in 1982). Music is easier to export than songs with lyrics. When a record is produced in France it can be released the morning after in Yokohama or Los Angeles: there is no local version «
I remember that in 1975 Franck was asked by Air France to compose the Anthem for the new supersonic Concorde, because he was considered as one of the 3 most exported French product with Brigitte Bardot and Air France.
He has composed some songs that he recorded, but rarely, because he did not like his own compositions. The most famous, Chariot, started like a joke. It was composed with his friends Paul Mauriat and Raymond Lefevre , with lyrics by Jacques Plante. At that time, in 1962, everything coming from the US was striking gold, so they invented a story that the song was the soundtrack of a new western movie produced by the 20th century Fox « You’ll never See It ». Petula Clark sung the song and had a hit. In the USA the song was recorded as I will Follow Him by Little Peggy March, a fifteen years old singer and became number 1 at the Billboard charts in all categories for 3 weeks, and in 1992 the song became the main theme for Sister Act 1 and 2, with Whoopi Goldberg. More recently, Eminem sampled the theme in his song Guilty Conscience.
From 1968, Franck worked with Claude-Michel Schönberg then artistic director at Pathe-Marconi EMI records. A personal and professional relationship started and Franck produced Claude-Michel’s big hit " Le Premier Pas" and the following albums.
A show-biz star, against all odds, concerts all over the world, around 200 LPs recorded, more than 3000 titles in his repertoire, this was Franck Pourcel, my father. Five years after his death, thousands of faithful fans around the world send me messages, and these 4 CDs with some 100 titles from his catalogue, are dedicated to them.
« Hearing this heavenly fiddler, I now understand why instrument makers call a body of a violin its soul » These words are from the French poet Jean Cocteau : the fiddler was Franck Pourcel.
Francoise Pourcel/September 2005
[edit] External link
Franck is coming back to records stores at the moment and his legacy is well taken of by his family who have recently designed and dedicated him a website at "http://www.franckpourcel.com/".
