Listen to a replay my latest radio show, “The French Connection” which airs LIVE every Sunday 7 pm (EST) on WRIU-FM and can be heard streaming online at WRIU.org
This Sunday’s FRENCH CONNECTION on WRIU 90.3 FM celebrates the musical scores from four wonderful French films: Les Choristes from 2011, Amelie from 2001, Ascenseur pour L’échafaud from 1957, and Black Orpheus, from 1959.
( This program originally aired on WRIU, Kingston, 90.3 FM on Sunday, August 17 )
The French Connection 8-17-25
Notes:
Our guest in studio is mon ami Wayne Cresser, host of Picture This: Film Music on the Radio.
FIRST SET: from “Les Choristes” (2011) | Composed by Bruno Coulais; Performed by the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra, with the boys choir Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc.
– “Les Avions En Papier” – “Vois Sur Ton Chemin (Les Choristes)” – “La Nuit” – “Compère Guilleri” – “Lueur D’été” – “Cerf-Volanther notables”
The story of Les Choristes was inspired by the origin of an actual boys’ choir The Little Singers of Paris.
At the 77th Academy Awards, Les Choristes was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Song (the latter for “Vois sur ton chemin“)
Notably, Les Choristes was director Christophe Barratier’s first feature film.
SECOND SET: from “Amelie” (2001) | Composed and performed by Yann Tiersen
– “La valse d’Amélie”
-“Comptine d’un autre été : L’Après-midi”
-“Les Jours tristes”
-“L’Autre valse d’Amélie”
Amélie is rated #37 among the “50 Greatest Romantic Comedies of All Time” by Rolling Stone magazine, and in 2025, the film ranked number 41 on The New York Times‘ list of “The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century.”
Yann Tiersen is a French- Breton musician and composer. In just two weeks, he composed nineteen pieces for ”Amelie.”
Tiersen just recently released an introspective new album called Rathlin from a Distance | The Liquid Hour.
THIRD SET: “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud” (1957) | Composed and performed by Miles Davis
– “Sur L’autoroute”
The soundtrack for Ascenseur pour Léchafaud, scored by American trumpeter Miles Davis, became an instant jazz classic, known for its atmospheric, moody, and improvisational style – perfectly complementing the film noir mood of Louis Malle’s movie.
On December 4,1 957, Davis brought his four sidemen to a French recording studio without any practice or preparation. Once the plot of the film was explained, Miles and his band improvised what would become the classic soundtrack.
The musical ideas explored on Ascenseur pour L’échafaud paved the way for Miles Davis’s later masterpiece, “Kind of Blue”.
FOURTH SET: “Black Orpheus” (1959) | Composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim & Luis Bonfa
-“Manhã de Carnaval”
-“Manhã de Carnaval / La Chanson d’Orphée” performed by Pauline Croze
-“Samba de Orfeu”
Black Orpheus is a 1959 romantic tragedy film directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus.
The film is particularly notable for its soundtrack by two Brazilian composers: Antônio Carlos Jobim, whose “Manhã de Carnaval” and “Samba de Orfeu” have become classics of bossa nova.
Black Orpheus won the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
CLOSING SONG: Sidney Bechet “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere” (1952)
This Sunday’s FRENCH CONNECTION on WRIU 90.3 FM began with a set of avant-garde French pop with electronic textures; We then played songs from a great rock band from Cabestany, Pyrénées-Orientales – The Limiñanas; ending with a set celebrating the French poet/anarchist Georges Brassens.
( This program originally aired on WRIU, Kingston, 90.3 FM on Sunday, August 10 )
Play to listen
Notes from the August 10, 2025, Episode 6
By Michael Stevenson
• Up top, we heard The Masons doing their song “Bottle of Love.” (1998). The Masons are a creation of Kraig Jordan, the Rhode Island-based musician/songwriter/producer who has collaborated with Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses, Belly), Mark Cutler (The Schemers, Raindogs), Bob Kendall (Blood Oranges), and other notables.
• Next, we heard Bertrand Belin performing “Hypernuit”. A brilliant storyteller, Bertrand Belin’s lyrics depict a character seeking vengeance on a village that wronged him.
“He surrounds the house – the one aptly named the Beast…”.
“Hypernuit” is from Belin’s third album, of the same name. Belin is currently touring in support of his latest album, Tambour Vision with upcoming concerts in France and Switzerland.
• Camille Hardouin , also known by the stage name “Demoiselle Inconnue”, is a French musician and illustrator. Her song “J’veux Pas” (“I Don’t Want To”) from her 2017 album Mille Bouches..
• Next, we heard Rodolphe Burger with “Les Danses Anglaises” – fromhis collection of remote concerts recorded by Burger and his musician friends from their homes during the Covid confinement.
Guitarist/singer/songwriter , Rodolphe Burger has been performing music for 30 years, as a solo artist, and also fronting the band Kat Onoma. As summer comes to a close, Burger is busy with his role as the artistic director of the annual Festival C’est Dans la Vallée, which takes place each October in a geographical triangular region—where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet.
Burger’s friend, Bertrand Belin, begins the spoken song, with Sarah Murcia contributing additional backup vocals later on. Burger’s guitar work utilizes fuzz effects to create that gritty texture. He was greatly influenced by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and has recorded a tribute album to that band.
• Next, we heard the song “Pas Dupe” (“Not Fooled”) from Jeanne Balibar 2006 album Paramour. Again, that’s the well-traveled sessionman Rodolphe Burger on lead guitar. Balibar was born in Paris, raised in an intellectually stimulating environment. (She’s the daughter of a prominent Marxist philosopher and a mother a physicist.)
Balibar has recorded two excellent solo albums of music, but she’s best known for her work in movies, having some 87 acting credits in films. Her latest is in Let Me Go, a drama about self-discovery set in the Swiss Alps.
• The Limiñanas are a French rock band from Cabestany, Pyrénées-Orientales, in the southwest of France. The couple have been making records since 2009. Lionel and Marie Limiñana met during high school, fell in love, opened up a record store, and eventually formed a band. He plays guitar, she drums. The ghost of Serge Gainsbourg and ’60s era Yé-Yé music is felt most keenly intheir first song “Votre côté yé-yé m’emmerde”, a softly spoken-word litany of cultural icons and celebrities. Not hero worship, but more of an eye-roll, the title translates to something like, “Your yé-yé views really annoy me”.
We next heard Lionel and Marie perform “Migas 2000” from the band’s album Trouble In Mind.
The Limiñanas are currently promoting their latest album, Faded, which features collaborations with artists like Bobby Gillespie (The Jesus and Mary Chain) and Bertrand Belin.
• Georges Brassens is widely considered to be one of the most important voices in post-war France.
He was a self-proclaimed anarchist who used his songs to express anti-authoritarian sentiments, often criticizing hypocrisy in society, including religious figures, the wealthy, and all those in power.
First, we heard Brassens singing “Mavaise Réputation” (1952) with lyrics that confirm his image as a rebel against societal norms.
• After that, we heard two versions of a classic Brassens’ song “Lovers on Public Benches”– first sung in French by Montreal singer Elizabeth Sheperd, and then with an English translation, performed by Pierre de Gaillande.
Brassens
In an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, Gaillande (born in France, now living in Brooklyn) says Brassens’ message is simple:
“It’s not about money,” he said. “It’s not that ‘God told me to do this’, it’s not about ‘I’m stronger than you.’ (The real message is ) We’re all in it together; let’s eat a great meal and have a bottle of wine.”
• Next : two songs that display the “joie de vie” side of Brassens, we heard “Les Prénoms Effaces” followed by “J’ai Connu de Veux.” The two songs are from the album Chante les Chansons de sa Jeunesse. Released in 1982, it is a nostalgic look back at Brassens’ musical influences, including the great Charles Trenet, who wrote “J’ai Connu de Veux”.
• Finally, we hear one of Brassens’ most famous songs, “Gorriile,” in this LIVE concert version by the French duo who call themselves “Mountain Men.”
The song “Gorille” tells the story of a gorilla who escapes a local zoo, and once on the “outside” mistakes a judge for a female gorilla and rapes him, leading to the memorable refrain, “Gare au gorille!” (Beware the gorilla!). The concert-goers recorded on the track were clearly rooting for the gorilla, not the judge.
• Closing our episode numero six of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, we leave with mon homme, Francis Cabrel singing the country-tinged “Quand j’aime une fois j’aime Pour Toujours,” from the singer’s classic Double Live album (1999.) The song was written by the Québécois folk singer and film director Richard Desjardin.
• The first song we heard tonight, “Air For G String” (also known as “Celebrated Air”) is an arrangement of a classical piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, formally referred to as Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 .
The song was from the 1966 LP on the Philllips label called Place Vendôme.
Place Vendôme was a unique collaboration recording between France’s Swingle Singers, known for their a cappella jazz interpretations of classical pieces, and the brilliant New York-based The Modern Jazz Quartet. That’s Milt Jackson’s vibraphone with the sublime lead melody, with John Lewis’s piano providing harmonic and rhythmic support. Originally founded by Ward Swingle in 1962, “Les Swingle Singers” began as session singers, mainly doing backing vocals for singers such as Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf. The eight vocalists in the group included Christiane Legrand as lead soprano. She was also the vocalist who dubbed the part of “Madame Emery” in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), which was composed by her brother Michel Legrand.
• Next, we heard an instrumental song from perhaps my favorite album of last year, “Les Egarés.” That record was described as “neither jazz, nor trad, nor chamber, nor avant-garde, but a bit of all of them, all at once.”
The group is comprised of tenor saxophonist Emile Parisien, cellist Vincent Segal, accordion virtuoso Vincent Peirani, and kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko (who originates from Mali). We heard the delightful klezmer-like dance song, ‘Esperanza’
• Following that cut we heard “Au bois de Saint-Amand” – a song written and performed by the French performer known as “Barbara,” from 1964. The lyrics of the song evoke the first loves of adolescents and is presented almost as a nursery rhyme.
“Barbara” (real name Monique Andrée Serf) was born in Paris in 1930. Because she was Jewish, she and her family were forced to hide in several different French cities throughout the Fascist occupation of France during WWII. After the war, Barbara studied music in Paris, eventually rising to fame in the 1960s. She was beloved in France due to her melancholic musical style, her pathos as a ‘suffering artist’ (she always dressed in black), and her non-conforming attitudes. Thousands of people attended the funeral in November 1997, including actor Gerard Depardieu, who served as a pallbearer.
• Next, we heard pianist/singer-songwriter Jeanne Cherhal. Cherhal’s song “Les Photos de Mariage” (Wedding Photos) speaks of the complexities of love, memory, and the bittersweet nature of looking back at wedding photos after a love relationship has soured.
• French Chanson legend Yves Montand next sings “Barbara,” a song based on a poem by Jacques Prévert, who also wrote Montand’s classic “Les Feuilles Mortes” (known in America as “The Autumn Leaves.”)
The song’s lyrics reflect on the destruction of the French city of Brest during World War II. The lyrics contrast a happy memory of a woman named Barbara, observed in the rain, amongst the later devastation of the city by war, referring to it as “a terrible and desolate rain of mourning”. The song questions the fate of Barbara and her lover amidst the “rain of iron, of fire, of steel, of blood”.
• Next we hear Les Itinérantes performing their version of “Windmills of Your Mind.” That song, from the film The Thomas Crown Affair, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1968. Les Itinérantes perform a cappella songs in over forty different languages. Manon Cousin, Pauline Langlois de Swarte and Élodie Pont “shape a sound with multiple personalities to embrace the different musical stories they tell.”
• Following “Windmills” we heard the legendary Toots Thielmans with a harmonica medley of Legrand movie themes including “The Windmills of Your Mind”; “Summer of ‘42”; and “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”
• Next, we hear LeGrand’s frequent collaborator, lyricist Alan Bergman, performing a song he wrote the lyrics to,”What Are you Doing the Rest Of Your Life?” That song was featured in the 1969 film The Happy Ending. Bergman often co-wrote with his wife, Marilyn. Alan Bergman passed away in this past July.
• Finally in this Legrand segment of music, we heard a cut from the composer’s film classic “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” – the international hit song “I Will Wait for You.”
• Next, we hear Francis Cabrel sing Otis Redding’s classic Soul ballad “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” (“Depuis Toujours,” en français). That track comes from Cabrel’s 1994 album titled Samedi Soir Sur La Terre. Redding’s classic original was released in 1965.
Until next Sunday, au Bientot!
• Next, three songs from the album “Mlah” by LesNegresse Vertes. That band was aptly described as a “French version of The Pogues.”
Les Négresses Vertes fused traditional sounds, Jazz Manouche, Ska, adding bawdy barroom lyrics and “a robust ladleful of punk attitude.”
You may also discern the added theatricality of circus music in the three songs. Three of the original members had worked in the Zingaro Horse Circus in Southern France, while a fourth was a professional clown.
The band was led by Noel Rota, best known as “Helno.” Sadly, Helno died while attempting to overcome a heroin addiction in 1993, just as the band was achieving peak success.
Rest in Peace, Helno Rota (January 22, 1993), Shane MacGowan (November 30, 2023), Alan Bergman (July 17, 2025), Marilyn Bergman January 8, 2022), and Connie Francis (July 16, 2025).
Tonight’s abbreviated show is only one hour, désolé pour ça. Even so, we’ll hear a classic Tin Pan Alley song performed by the legendary Maurice Chevalier; a set of music from Oscar-winning singer/composer Camille Dalmais; the sublime harmonica of Toots Thielemans, and in the middle show, the first “Rock ‘n Roll” song recorded in France. D’accord!
WRIU FM Sundays 7 pm
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
The French Connection, hosted by Mike Stevenson, is broadcast Sundays at 7 pm from WRIU, Kingston, 90.3 FM,
Mike Stevenson
Each week on The French Connection, we will explore the wonderful varieties of French music, from the early 1920s to present day: Chanson, Jazz, Folk, Jazz Manouche and Rock n Roll.
Our show is intended for not only the Francophile, but also the music lover thus far unaware of the long and rich history of French chanson. The French Connection welcomes your comments and song suggestions for future shows.
Show #3 JULY 20, 2025 Playlist :
Boris Vian “J’Suis Snob” ( 1955)
Camille “Mon Petit Veux” (2002)
Zaz “La Vie en Rose” (Piaf) 2013
Moriarty “Isabella” (2010)
Toots Thielemans “The Blacksmith Blues” (1961)
Maurice Chevalier “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me” (Fain/Kahal) 1930
Noel Harrison “The Windmills of Your Mind” (Legrand/Bergman) 1968
Henry Cording and his Original Rock and Roll Boys – “Rock n Roll Mops” (1956) Henri Cording (aka Henri Salvador ), Vernon Sinclair (aka Boris Vian ) and Mig Bike (aka Michel Legrand )
Camille “Guns of Brixton” (Simonon) 2004
Camille “Le Festin” (Michael Giacchino) 2007
Camille “Mi Camino” (2025)
Les Baxter “The Poor People of Paris” (Monnot/Roussard) 1956
Pas De Merde 