PORTRAIT. Anne Sylvestre, it was feminism in songs

It was a late spring Sunday afternoon, April 15, 2018, and Anne Sylvestre was happening under the Magic Mirror of the Mythos festival in Rennes. A room packed with 700 people like his song tour entitled 60 years old already? White heads, high 40s to Fabulettes for children, young people discovering this great lady of song to text …

On stage, as usual, Anne Sylvestre had returned with the jitters then had associated humor and tenderness with slamming words to speak of women, their emancipation, love, marriage for all or revolt. Songs like simple stories that tell the story of life without ever forgetting the claims.

Tolerance, ecology, gender equality

Because Anne Sylvestre is inseparable from tolerance, ecology and, of course, equality between men and women. For example with No you don’t have a name on abortion, in 1973, two years before the Veil law. Or ? A witch like the others who says “Strong, you fought me / Weak, you despised me”.

And again this ?Little man from 1986: “At the beginning, all fire, all embers, he was nice / When he got comfortable, he would make the bed again / He would say to me ‘you’re beautiful’ afterwards as before / He would take down the trash when leaving […] But he called me bobonne after not long. “

Fabulettes sold 1.5 million copies

Even with its Fabulettes, of which she made eighteen albums of 263 songs sold 1.5 million copies, from the 1970s, after the birth of the first of her two daughters, she never took children for fools. It was an incredible success without her ever performing her Fabulettes on the scene.

Her career, this woman who had grown up in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune near Lyon, she began in the 1950s in Parisian cabarets: La Colombe, La Contrescarpe, Les Trois baudets.

Four Charles-Cros Grand Prix

And Anne-Marie Thérèse Beugras, born June 20, 1934, became Anne Sylvestre quickly recognized by Georges Brassens. She made a name for herself on the radio at a time when there were few singer-songwriters. Then through her records, for which she won the Charles-Cros Academy’s International Grand Prix for discs four times.

During her more than sixty-year career, she never stopped writing, even in self-production, and her coming was still scheduled on several stages for the next year.

Its place in French song can also be measured on the influence that artists like Jeanne Cherhal, Aldebert, Juliette, Renan Luce or Les Ogres de Barback recognize.

A sacred character

Of her personal history, she spoke little. In particular the collaborationist past of his father, Albert Beugras, right-hand man of Jacques Doriot during the war and imprisoned nearly ten years after the Liberation. Or the death of his grandson killed in the Bataclan attacks.

Anne Sylvestre was also quite a character. We find her during this concert in Rennes, two years ago, after her concert where she was accompanied by an all-female trio!

Sandrine Debray, from the festival team, accompanied her to sell her records after her performance: ? “It was amazing, there was an hour and a half in line, of all ages. She wanted to be present, to take care of everything, with great attention to people but also, a little gruff at times. You shouldn’t trample on him. ” We understood that.

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