Julien Clerc & Assia

Though sometimes dismissed in his native land as little more than a "chanteur de charme" -- in other words, "a ladies' singer" -- Julien Clerc in fact enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in contemporary French pop, shaping the nouvelle chanson aesthetic across a span of decades that began in the shadow of the student rebellions of 1968 and continued well into the following century. Born Paul-Alain LeClerc in Paris on October 4, 1947, he was the product of a wealthy bourgeois family. Following his parents' divorce he was sent to live with his father, a ...