“It’s exactly like a surprise bag, you never know what you’ll find there”, slips Jean-Marc D’Angio, grabbing one of the gray, square and thin cardboard boxes placed in front of him. . Inside, magnetic tapes, some of which have reached their fifties. The only certainty: they immortalized the voice of Rose Laurens. Experiments or finalized models, the vast majority of these songs have never been published.
Cardboard boxes like this, there are dozens that the singer, who died five years ago at the age of 67, left in the Paris cellar of her mother Germaine. Jean-Marc D’Angio and the Rose Laurens Souvenirs team then undertook to uncover these precious archives over the months. After Human warmth last year and where does the time go in January, it’s the turn of Real Lovea third unreleased collection to arrive on streaming platforms this Friday.
“We say to ourselves that it is not possible that they did not release such a song”
“With her husband, composer Jean-Pierre Goussaud, Rose really had a passion for music in common. They had a studio at home. He said to him: “I composed this, you want to put your voice on it”? “says Jean-Marc d’Angio, a former journalist bound by a strong friendship with Rose Laurens since he interviewed her in 1996. The mother confirms: “I attended a lot of these recordings. Jean-Pierre said to me: “Come and give me your opinion!” “They were in a bubble and didn’t have the distance to know which title was good or not. When we listen to some of them, we say to ourselves that it is not possible that they have not released such a piece”, is still surprised Jean-Marc d’Angio.
Just look at these unpublished to realize that Rose Laurens is much more than the interpreter of the 1982 hit Africa or that the first Fantine of the musical Wretched. From there to say that his career could have been completely different, there is a step that his friend takes: “The problem is that Jean-Pierre and she often came across producers who wanted to make a hit, and replicate success by publishing Africa bis. » Grandma Yoko, published in 1983, is a flagrant example. “Rose has always approached several styles of music, underlines Aurélien Saunier, creator of the Pop Music Deluxe site, which is also part of the adventure. We see that voice goes on everything: folk, pop, variety, dance and even on country! »
Each tape found in the cellar therefore contains its share of surprises that are revealed by dint of patience. The devices for reading them cannot be found in France and the tapes, attacked by mold, need severe cleaning. It is in Switzerland that Rose Laurens Souvenirs operates this grooming and digitization.
A song for Marie Laforêt
Sometimes, the discoveries make it possible to read under a new angle the history of the French song. “In the early 1970s, Michel Berger wanted to write for Rose Laurens. In the recovered recordings, one can hear what will eventually become in lovethe first album by Véronique Sanson and of which Rose had previously sung the songs identically or in other forms”, advances Aurélien Saunier.
He continues: “Among the unpublished works put online, there are The little girl who was snowing. Jean-Pierre Goussaud had written it for Marie Laforêt. Rose used to help her husband by singing the tracks for the demos he offered to others. But when she did the tests on this song, she said: “I keep it, I like it too much”. He liked her so much that she never went out. »
“We don’t do this for the money”
The title that fans were dying to discover is Real Love “This is one of the most recent, it was written by Carole Fredericks. Rose Laurens recorded it, she wanted to release it but she got caught up in the musical show The shadow of a giant and the title stayed aside”, specifies Jean-Marc d’Angio.
Would the artist however be happy that these recordings are thus offered to the ears of the public? The singer’s friend admits he doesn’t have the answer. The mother of Rose Laurens reassures him: “Yes, she would have been happy if she had known that it corresponded to the taste of Jean-Marc in whom she had complete confidence. »
The latter assures that he does not want to publish titles without prior reflection: “There must be an interest, that it brings something. “There is therefore no room for ditties deemed anecdotal. “We don’t do this for the dough, insists Jean-Marc d’Angio. We are volunteers. The goal is to please people and, above all, that the artist is not forgotten. To leave nothing more is to make her die a second time. »