Genre
Chanson. "The Guardian" described the album as "utterly beautiful," featuring twelve succinct, memorable songs delivered in Moustaki's gentle baritone with minimal accompaniment. The programme moves between original compositions and settings of poems by Paul Verlaine and Manos Hadjidakis, in the spare, intimate style that made Moustaki's the most distinctive new voice in French chanson of 1969.
Release
Released in 1969 by Polydor, France. It was Moustaki's second solo album. The sleeve notes were written by Georges Brassens - whose encouragement of the young Moustaki in a Paris bookstore years earlier had been a decisive moment in his artistic formation. Brassens' endorsement on the sleeve gave the album immediate critical credibility.
Production
Produced by Henri Belolo, with Jacques Bedos as artistic director and Alain Goraguer as musical director and arranger; recording engineer was Jean-Pierre Dupuy. Guest performers included R. Gimenez and Sylvano on guitar on "Gaspard," and Françoise Walch on vocals on "Le Facteur." Most tracks feature Moustaki accompanied by his own guitar alone.
Reception
The title single "Le Métèque" reached number one on the French charts for six non-consecutive weeks and became one of the defining songs of 1969 across Europe. An Italian version, "Lo straniero," became the best-selling record of 1969 in Italy. The album launched Moustaki as a major performing artist after a decade as a songwriter for others, and established him as a symbol of Mediterranean cosmopolitanism and poetic dignity in the face of cultural displacement.
Georges Moustaki
Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi, May 3, 1934, Alexandria, Egypt – May 23, 2013, Nice, France) was an Egyptian-French singer-songwriter of Greek-Jewish origin. His parents were Greek Jews from Corfu who owned an outstanding bookshop in Alexandria. He moved to Paris in 1951 and within a short time became known in Parisian nightclubs for his poetic lyrics and melancholy ballads. He wrote approximately 300 songs for some of the most popular French singers, including Édith Piaf, Dalida, Françoise Hardy, Yves Montand, Barbara, and Juliette Gréco. His love affair with Piaf was a press obsession. As a performer he sang in French, Italian, English, Greek, Portuguese, Arabic, and Spanish. He also moonlighted as a poet, actor, and journalist. He received the Grand Prix de la SACEM for lifetime achievement and, shortly before his death, the title of "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres".
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