To manage her father’s catalog, France Brel wants to get help, but no more. Jacques Brel’s daughter has thus commissioned a subsidiary of Warner Music to administer her father’s work. However, it remains the owner and guarantor, unlike the David Bowie case whose catalog was sold, the parties announced on Sunday.
“I am the opposite of these maneuvers (Bob Dylan or David Bowie, whose catalogs have been sold). I will never be able to sell my father’s catalog, I haven’t become mentally ill (laughs), it’s a partnership, to benefit from Warner’s global network, ”explained France Brel.
An agreement except in Belgium
“We are not making an acquisition. As much as Bowie’s catalog was acquired by Warner Chappell, there, Editions Jacques Brel (directed by France Brel) retain ownership of the work and the rights”, added Matthieu Tessier, president of Warner Chappell Music France. . “We have a mandate to represent them, to ensure that rights are properly raised for them, to give them visibility and to send them proposals for use (film, show, etc.)”.
Warner Chappell has so far co-administered, with Editions Jacques Brel, 16 pieces from the repertoire, including standards such as Do not leave me Where The Thousand Time Waltz. On the basis of “a renewable collaboration for five years”, according to France Brel, Warner Chappell will represent in the world (except Belgium) the “catalogue of Editions Jacques Brel, that is to say 130 titles”. This constitutes “the vast majority of his repertoire” according to Warner Chappell.
Covers by Sinatra, Bowie or Faithfull
“The Warner Chappell teams, around forty around the world, will look at the (operating) contracts, in countries where I don’t go every week, such as Indonesia or India,” said Jacques’ daughter. Brel, who remains the sole decision maker to validate or not the uses of the work of “Grand Jacques”. And France Brel illustrates: “My mother, who took care of my father’s (musical) editions from 1962, had, for example, signed (operating) contracts in countries that no longer exist, such as Yugoslavia. We don’t know what happened to it.”
“Warner will also be able to see if, for example, people who put on a show in Greece with songs by Jacques Brel are in good order with a rights collection company”, further detailed France Brel. Matthieu Tessier also recalled that the legendary artist “is one of a handful of world-renowned French-speaking singers for his interpretations and adaptations of Anglo-Saxon artists, which have become classics, for example in the United States”. The author ofamsterdam has been taken over by Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, David Bowie or Marianne Faithfull.