Peter,

Since this morning, I thought of more names like Catherine Lara , Boris Vian, Bobby Lapointe, Dick Annegarn (actually, this one is Belgian, but what a musician)." Mrr about old french songs" gave good references (I saw les freres Jacques on stage and what they do NEEDS to be seen as well as heard. Maybe a video is available...My recommendations, trying to put my own taste behind the computer...

Boris Vian (Anything by him. He is a riot if you happen to have a sense of humor) Georges Brassens: anything by him is great, consistent quality and style. Amazing if you think that he ahs been active for...years Serge Gainsbourg: his early work is interesting. After 1965, he becomes boring as too provocative and so just for the sake of it... Leo Ferre: all his work is interesting and worthwhile.

All of the above are happy playing music and sharing jokes together in music heavens (are they playing harp??- see Larson for this one)

In the live part of the referrence: Maxime le Forestier : Peace-love-dope style in his early work, but a VOICE and a good musician. Claude Nougaro : the only one to my taste to have written french jazz, including in the words, that swing just as well as any Armstrong, Basie or Brubeck. He dared put words on "Rondo a la Turque" and it works. wow... Pierre Perret: very Gaulois most of the time. He cannot sing and knows it but he writes good songs, either "grivoises" or funny or plain poetic. Catherine Lara : a great lady of the french chanson. Rock n roll with french words and a violin. Deadly and worth a listen. Try her work from mid 80's to mid 90's.

For further refernce, you may want to check Radio France site, and look for "francofolies". Jean-Louis Foulquier, who runs this yearly event since 1985 or so is nobody's fool as far as chanson francaise is concerned.

Finally, there is an encyclopedic work that is available since the end of 1994 by Marc Robine, who compiled hundreds of french songs and published them on a set of CDs AND the book that goes with it. I no longer have the exact reference for that.

Et voila. Enjoy if you can lay your hand on this material.

JL