Daniel Balavoine

Born Daniel Xavier-Marie Balavoine on 5 February 1952 in Alençon, France, the late singer and songwriter Daniel Balavoine began his career in the early 1970s and ascended to the top of the French-speaking pop world in the early 1980s before his untimely from a helicopter crash in Mali on 14 January 1986. In spite of his short-lived career, he left a legacy that has inspired everyone from French legends Jean-Jacques Goldman and close friend Michel Berger (Daniel Balavoine was a part of the original cast of Michel Berger's iconic rock opera Starmania in 1978) to Japanese pop-rockers Crystal King. He amassed an impressive run of albums, beginning with De vous à elle en passant par moi in 1975 and taking in Les aventures de Simon et Gunther ... Stein (1977), Le chanteur (1978), Face amour / Face amère (1979), Un autre monde (1980), Vendeurs de larmes (1982), and Loin des yeux de l'Occident (1983). Released in 1985, Sauver l'amour was the last LP he recorded before his death and spawned a number of hits including "L'Aziza," a tribute to his Jewish-Moroccan wife Corinne, the title song, "Tous les cris les SOS," "Petit homme mort au combat," a song about child soliders, and the last single issued before his death, "Aimer est plus fort que d'être aimé." Daniel Balavoine was posthumously awarded the Victoire de la Musique Album of the Year Award in 1986 for Sauver L'amour. In 2006, to mark the 20th anniversary of his death, Barclay Records released a box set of his complete recorded works, Balavoine sans frontières. On June 1, 2021, Google celebrated the life of Daniel Balavoine with a Google Doodle.