Franck Pourcel(1913-2000)

Franck Pourcel was his real name: last name originally from Italy, first name a tribute to the composer, César Franck. He was born in Marseilles on August 11, 1913. His father was a technician but also a musician in the Navy in Marseilles. At six years old, he began learning music and his father sent him to study the violin at the Conservatoire de Marseilles, and drums, too, because he loved jazz. Then, he went to the Conservatoire in Paris. He then came back to Marseilles where he worked in theaters, one of them the Opera, and, at night, he played drums in nightclubs. This explains, how, later, his orchestrations were based on strings and percussions.

During that period, Franck was the musical director of some singers, among them Yves Montand, and he was hired for 3 months by Bruno Coquatrix, the future manager of the Olympia de Paris, to be the conductor of the famous singer Lucienne Boyer; in fact he stayed 8 years and toured the world with her.

But he always had a dream: his own orchestra, which could freely express his musical feelings. He always worked toward this dream, but between the dream and the reality, it was very difficult: records companies were not keen on hiring 50 musicians! "At that time, creating an orchestra with 50 musicians sounded nuts, but I wanted it. After many refusals, I moved to United States."

In 1953, first recording: Blue Tango and the follow up Limelight produced by Maurice Teze in France.

People took him immediately for an American, super quality label at that time, and instantly he became famous. It was the start of his long career, and all the French singers were eager to be accompanied by the American: Charles Aznavour, Tino Rossi, Gloria Lasso, Gilbert Bécaud, Yves Montand, Charles Trenet, Danielle Darrieux and, later, George Chakiris from West Side Story (1961). Between 1954 and 1957, he kept recording: 9 LPs in 3 years. He created the series, "Amour Danse et Violons", which include 54 LPs.

But the Americans had kept an eye on him, and he went back to Hollywood at Capitol to record albums dedicated to the American market, like Our Paris, French Touch, French Sax, French Wine-Drinking music and La Femme (composed by Les Baxter) with its graceful and scandalous nude cover. He became Franck Pourcel and the French Fiddlers, Franck Pourcel and his Parisians strings, or The Rockin' strings Orchestra In 1959, he recorded Only You, 2 years after the fantastic success of the title by The Platters. But arranging it à la Franck Pourcel he gave it a second youth. He sold more than 3 million copies, stayed on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks, and became the first European orchestra leader to sell more than 1 million records in the US.

In 1958, he recorded an LP with the Viennese's Waltzes, and then decided to lead his Variety public to the discovery and appreciation of popular classical pieces. With his Pages Celebres he leds the sale of EMI Classics, but he felt no special vanity from this, for he considered himself in the service of music. He recorded 17 LPs with the most famous classical orchestras like the London Symphony Orchestra, The London Philharmonic, The Lamoureux Orchestra, The BBC Orchestra. In 1979, following the evolution of the recording techniques, the series came to be called Classics in Digital.

A few of his musicians started a career on their own. Michel Legrand played piano, when he was young. In his orchestra he also had Raymond Lefebvre, Paul Mauriat and Jean-Claude Casadesus, at that time playing percussions in his classical recordings.

Between 1956 and 1972, he was the regular conductor for France at the Eurovision song contest, and he toured a lot in Japan, USA, South America, and appears on TV-show specials, all around the world.

His records have been exported to 58 countries. In 1975, Franck was asked by Air France to compose the Anthem for the new supersonic Concorde, because he was considered one of the 3 most exported French product with Brigitte Bardot and Air France.

He has composed some songs that he recorded, but rarely, because he did not liked his own compositions. The most famous, Chariot, started like a joke. It was composed with his friends, Paul Mauriat and Raymond Lefebvre, with lyrics by Jacques Plante. At that time, in 1962, everything coming from the US was striking gold, so they invented a story that the song was the soundtrack of a new western movie produced by 20th Century Fox: You'll never See It. Petula Clark sung the song and had a hit. In the USA, the song was recorded as "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March, a fifteen-years-old singer, became number 1 in the Billboard charts all categories for 3 weeks, and, in 1992, the song became the main theme for Sister Act (1992) and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), with Whoopi Goldberg. More recently, Eminem included some bars in his song, "Guilty Conscience".

From 1968, Franck worked with Claude-Michel Schonberg (now the composer of the Musicals "Les Miserables and Miss Saigon") then artistic director at Pathe-marconi EMI records. A personal and professional relationship started and Franck produced Claude-Michel's big hit Le Premier Pas and the following albums.

A show-biz star, against all odds, concerts all over the world, around 200 LPs recorded, more than 3000 titles in his repertoire, this was Franck Pourcel.