Herbert Leonard

Best known for his hit "Pour le plaisir", Herbert Léonard has followed a singular path from yéyé rock to variety songs, without losing his attraction for soul. Born Hubert Lœnhardt in Strasbourg on February 25, 1945, he learned to play guitar and formed an amateur group, Les Jets, before joining Les Lionceaux in 1996, just before they split up. Based in Paris, he signed a contract with Mercury, which led to the recording of four albums influenced by soul and rock, as evidenced by his adaptations of Traffic or Jefferson Airplane ("Si je ne t'aimais qu'un peu"). His career, interrupted after a car accident, resumed in 1971 with a number of collaborations and a shared album with Alain Bashung. However, after several years of silence, it was through the intermediary of lyricist Vline Buggy and composer Julien Lepers, the future host of the TV show Questions pour un champion, that the singer achieved his greatest success in 1981 with the song "Pour le plaisir", certified platinum with over one and a half million copies sold. 1983 saw the release of the duet with Julie Pietri , "Amoureux fous", followed in 1985 by "Puissance et gloire", the theme song for the TV soap opera Châteauvallon, with music by Vladimir Cosma. In Quebec, "Flagrant délit" reached number one, while the album Laissez-Nous Rêver (1987) featured four Top 50 hits, including the No. 3 "Quand tu m'aimes". Twenty-two years after Les Lionceaux, Herbert Léonard returned to the Olympia in Paris, this time as a headliner. Although he scored another hit with the theme song for the Navarro series ("Navarro Blues" in 1989), broadcast between 1989 and 2007, the singer multiplied his albums and played the role of Frollo in the musical Notre-Dame de Paris in 2001. He took part in the nostalgic tours Âge tendre (2008, 2013 and 2017) and Âge tendre et têtes de bois (2010), recorded the albums Demi-Tour (2014) and Mise à Jour (2016), before being placed in an induced coma for a month after a pulmonary embolism in 2017. In 2020, he joined the tour Âge tendre, la tournée des idoles. Known to fans for his articles and books on military aviation, and in particular Soviet aircraft of the Second World War, Herbert Léonard published his autobiography Pour le plaisir et pour le reste in 2010. He died of lung cancer in Fontainebleaux, France, on March 2, 2025, at the age of 80. Since their meeting in 1967, he had been the companion, then husband, of singer Cléo (née Chantal Rousselot).