Belgian-born actor, director, composer, and screenwriter, Jacques Brel was one of Europe’s most enduring artists of the 1950s and 1960s. His influence was international—both David BOWIE and Joni MITCHELL cited Brel’s music as having helped shape their respective genres. Brel’s songs, often brooding and filled with themes of unrequited love and cynicism, were brought to their largest audience by others who recorded them within their own individual styles.
Jacques Brel was born on April 8, 1929, in Brussels. He endured a difficult childhood marred by the severity of the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II. Initially, his talents as a musician and songwriter were purely a hobby. He studied commercial law and worked for a while in his father’s cardboard merchandising business.
By age 23, Brel, now married with two daughters, quit his job and moved his family to Paris so that he could pursue a career as a songwriter. As a consequence, Brel and his family lived in poverty while he struggled to find singers for his compositions. He finally realised he stood the best chance of survival (as well as increasing the chance that his work would be interpreted as he intended it) by performing the works himself. He swiftly gained a loyal cabaret following, earning notice for his highly emotive, visceral stage presence evoking feelings of loneliness, death, and melancholy that were never melodramatic.
Though primarily a European phenomenon, Brel also gained a small but dedicated following in the United States after he was signed to the CBS recording label. Although he never had a popular hit record in America, Brel’s songs did find success in the hands of other artists—his “Le Moribond” later became the Terry Jacks hit “Seasons in the Sun,” and the English versions of “If You Go Away” and “If We Only Have Love” have become cabaret standards.
For over 12 years, Brel, as a songwriter and singer, gave more than 200 concerts annually in Europe, and despite language barriers, he packed both Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London. His songs have also been performed and recorded by artists including Frank SINATRA, Ray CHARLES, Nina SIMONE, and Scott Walker.
In 1967, Brel retired from the concert stage for health reasons, but his music was kept alive thanks to fresh recordings by other artists of his songs. Brel’s music also reached a whole new audience with the creation of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, a revue-style show written by poet Eric Blau and songwriter Mort Shuman. The show opened in early 1968 at New York City’s Village Gate theater and ran for over 1,840 performances before closing. In Britain, the musical did not fare as well, closing after only 22 performances.
When not singing, Brel pursued a moderately successful career as an actor appearing in films by Claude Lelouch, Marcel Carné, and Edouard Molinaro. He made his directorial debut in 1972 with Franz, a serio-comic love story in which he also starred. The film received critical praise, but failed commercially. In 1973, Brel directed le Far West, another box-office failure. Though he continued to act through the mid-1970s, he never directed again.
Brel developed lung cancer in the early 1970s and struggled with it until October 9, 1978, when he died. Immediately following his death a compilation album, Brel, sold over a million copies worldwide.
James Tuverson
SEE ALSO:
CABARET MUSIC; FOLK MUSIC; PIAF, EDITH.
Blau, Eric. Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and living in Paris
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971);
Clayson, Alan. Jacques Brel
(Chessington: Castle Communications, 1996);
Holdsworth, Carole A. Modern Minstrelsy
(Las Vegas, NV: P. Lang, 1979).
Best of Jacques Brel, Brel;
Jacques Brel l’Univers Sympbonique;
Jacques Brel Master Series; Knokke Live.