Sylvie Vartan (born Sylvie Georges Vartanian; 15 August 1944) is a French singer and actress. She is known as one of the most productive and tough-sounding yé-yé artists. Her performances often featured elaborate show-dance choreography, and she made many appearances on French and Italian TV. Yearly shows with then-husband Johnny Hallyday attracted full houses at the Olympia and the Palais des congrès de Paris throughout the 1960s and mid-1970s. In 2004, after a break in performances, she began recording and giving concerts of jazz ballads in francophone countries. (More from Wikipedia)
Shortly after Black Russian broke up, Serge Kapustin and Nan O’Byrne worked with French singer and actress Sylvie Vartan, who is of Bulgarian-Armenian ancestry. In the 1960’s, Sylvie Vartan was one of the top performers in France; from Wikipedia: “She is known as one of the most productive and tough-sounding yé-yé artists. Her performances often featured elaborate show-dance choreography, and she made many appearances on French and Italian TV.” The term “yé-yé” is derived from the “yeah yeah” calls that were popularized by the Beatles and other 1960’s bands; many if not most of the performers were women, so they became known as “yé-yé girls”.
After touring with him and making a movie together, Sylvie Vartan married Johnny Hallyday, a true French icon who is often referred to as the “French Elvis” and has sold 80 million albums worldwide (though he remains largely unknown in the English-speaking world). They flew to Nashville by the end of 1963 and recorded a best-selling album with the Jordanaires (who recorded with the real Elvis for many years) called Sylvie à Nashville; it sold one million copies in Japan alone. Three of the songs were in English, including one with Paul Anka. Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday were the country’s “golden couple” and had joint sellout shows annually in the 1960’s through the 1970’s.
Shortly after Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday divorced in late 1980, Serge Kapustin and Nan O’Byrne collaborated on a song called “Il Me Fait De La Magie” (“It Reminds Me of the Magic”) with French singer Marie-José Casanova. The song appeared on the French album Sylvie Vartan by Sylvie Vartan that was evidently intended to re-establish her identity as a singer. The album is one of several eponymous albums listed in the Discogs site, but in the extensive “List of Sylvie Vartan albums” in Wikipedia, the album is apparently the one also listed as Ça Va Mal (the opening track on Sylvie Vartan is “Ça Va Mal”). The album was reissued on CD in 2013.
(April 2015/1)
