Francis Lai
A touch of French romanticism
Friends or associates, all use the same words when it comes to discussing Francis Lai’s personality: humbleness, tact and warmth. It is commonly admitted that Francis Lai composes as he is. Since the 60’s, he has always written music for movie soundtracks or artists regardless of the media pressure or the trends and without any desire for honours or rewards.
His work is literally impressive and leaves you meditative about the path of a melodist with an outstanding instinct who set his incredible talent from the French Riviera to the Hollywood hills.
Son of Italian descent horticulturists, Francis Lai was born in the up-country of Nice, the capital of the French Riviera in 1932. He was initiated into accordion by his cousin and started to play professionally at the age of 16 in hoedowns and in local cabarets. He was attracted to Jazz and became familiar with improvisation, which lead him to music writing. Like he once said: “I found out that improvisation is a kind of music writing. Musical ideas just pop up under my fingers when I am improvising. Instead of letting them fade away, I simply write them down to make sure that I can play them again”.
Things speeded up right after. Young Francis Lai went to Paris and wrote songs with Bernard Dimey. He then met Edith Piaf and became an accordionist. In 1965, thanks to Pierre Barouh, he crossed a young director, Claude Lelouch who proposed him to write the score for a film project called “A Man And A Woman”. Francis Lai suggested around ten different melodies way before the shooting. “Claude even jolted when I hummed him the theme which lately would be used for the sequence when Trintignant walks in Pigalle” recalls the composer. “It was the famous Chabadabada and he asked me to play it again ten times in a row and then he said to me: Francis, THIS is the main theme, no less!” The whole score has been written and recorded way before the first day of shooting and on the stage, Claude used it to guide his actors to give rhythm to his staging. The music was even taking the place of some dialogues; it revealed characters and expressed feelings. With the help of Ivan Jullien for the orchestration, Francis Lai dealt with the legendary Chabadabada in an extreme and yet revolutionary conciseness: a mere female voice (Nicole Croisille) with the one of a man (Pierre Barouh) accompanied by the composer himself playing the electronic accordion which had never been used in film soundtracks before. A legend was born: Palme d’Or in Cannes, a worldwide success, and innumerable covers from Ella Fitzgerald to Tom Jones. According to Claude Lelouch, all at once, Francis Lai’s music became forever associated with romance films as a whole.
The day after, Francis Lai became one of the most called on French films music writers. But even when he wrote for other genres, he remained faithful to his philosophy of composing mere yet easily caught-on musical themes together with an obvious and natural instinct for fine melodies. Like he once said: “My goal is to write a score which will enable the listener to visualize the film immediately and to compose melodies which can be easily adapted in different genres such as Jazz or symphonic”. Francis Lai then became all Claude Lelouch’s films music writer (Vivre pour vivre, La Bonne année, Les Uns et les autres, Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté…Thirty scores to date), but also “veteran” René Clément’s (Le Passager de la pluie, La Course du lièvre à travers les champs), Henri Verneuil’s (Le Corps de mon ennemi) and years after: Claude Zidi’s (les trois Ripoux, Association de malfaiteurs).
The spiral of success even went intensifying during the 70’s with his Best Soundtrack Oscar ® for Arthur Hiller’s Love Story, the huge hit of David Hamilton’s Bilitis’ soundtrack, not even mentioning his work for television.
As the privileged ambassador of a certain French Romanticism, Francis Lai’s writing will travel all over the world and particularly to Great Britain (three films with Michael Winner), Italy (two with Dino Risi), USSR (Nikita Mikhalkov’s Les Yeux noirs) and Japan. At home, in his home studio, Francis Lai still composes melodies on his accordion-like keyboard still aiming at simple, popular and easily identifiable melodies.
“The first time I met Francis Lai – said Dino Risi – he appeared to me like a very discreet and modest person – almost an amateur. I love amateur-like artists: I am touched by their sensitiveness. Artists like him create things when so-called professionals tend to mimic them, most of the time”.
PlayTime, the label which runs Francis Lai's masters continue to edit original material and keep offering the most famous soundtracks composed by the aristocrat of the melody
For the third anniversary of the death of the famous composer, the one who has managed these masters for more than thirty years (Thierry Wolf, FGL PRODUCTIONS's chairman) produced an amazing tribute show : Francis Lai Story at the Grand Rex in Paris (with singers from many countries... USA, Japan, but also the French stars Nicole Croisille, Calogero, Anne Sila). This concert is now available on digital!
www.francislai.com
