Au 'Voir, Johnny Hallyday: Froggy Elvis Dead, Aged 74

Bad-ass w/ a 1,000-yd. stare: Johnny Hallyday, 2003. Photo by Frédéric Loridant/Wikimedia Commons

M. Hallyday moved to Los Angeles to avoid taxes & spent some of his time & money riding around on a motorcycle.Music maven Yastreblansky has a video.

The Grauniad's obit:

Hallyday’s detractors pointed to the derivative nature of his material: he faithfully copied almost every major rock star from the 1960s on, from Buddy Holly to Elvis Presley, the Who to the Stones, Hendrix to Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi to Prince. More than a quarter of all his recordings were French adaptations of English-language songs. Even his sternest critics, though, would concede that Hallyday was one of rock’s great showmen, almost certainly the only French performer capable not just of selling out, on three successive nights, the Stade de France, but of holding its 80,000-strong crowd rapt in the palm of his hand. His last great free concert, on Bastille Day 2009, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, drew a live audience of between 800,000 and 1 million people.

(Damn right I picked the most negative paragraph!)

And from the music biz bible:

taking a chance on a young act called The Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose first gig was opening for Hallyday in October 1966.

The critics weigh in:

 John Lichfield / The Guardian: 
The tragedy of Johnny Hallyday? He should have sung Piaf, not Presley

Discussion:

Erin Zaleski / The Daily Beast:   Johnny Hallyday, We Hardly Knew You!

And so another part of this reporter's youth is gone; Johnny & Sylvie Vartan were the Liz & Dick of the French pop world during my days in Paris.