Jacques Brel

Jacques Brel (born April 8, 1929, Schaerbeeck, Belgium—died October 9, 1978, Bobigny, near Paris, France) was a Belgian singer and songwriter whose literate, passionate songs made him one of the most popular French-language musicians in Europe and gained him a worldwide following.

Brel began writing stories and poems as a teen, but he was an indifferent student, and after his final year of secondary school he took a job with his father’s packaging company. While there he became involved with a philanthropic youth organization, and he started performing and writing songs as a member of that group. Brel began singing his compositions in Brussels cabarets in 1952, and the following year he released his first recording, a single that featured the songs “Il y a” (“There Is” or “There Are”) and “La Foire” (“The Fair”) on its two sides. Although the single was only modestly successful, it caught the attention of a French recording executive, who invited Brel to move to Paris.

In 1953 Brel began singing in French cafés. He did not meet with immediate success, but he persevered, and his first album, Jacques Brel et ses chansons (“Jacques Brel and His Songs”) appeared in 1955. He finally broke through with the title song of his second album, Quand on n’a que l’amour (1957; “If We Only Have Love”), and by the end of the decade he was a star in France. His songs, frequently sharply satirical and often implicitly religious, also became hugely popular in much of Europe. His best-known songs, including “Ne me quitte pas” (“Do Not Leave Me”), “Amsterdam,” “Madeleine,” “Les Vieux” (“The Old Ones”), and “La Chanson des vieux amants” (“Song of Old Lovers”), were translated and recorded by numerous singers in other languages. Notable American recordings of Brel’s songs included Damita Jo’s “If You Go Away” (1966), a translation by Rod McKuen of “Ne me quitte pas”; Judy Collins’s “The Dove” (1963), an English-language version of “La Colombe”; David Bowie’s “Amsterdam” (1973) and “My Death” (1983), the latter a translation of Brel’s “La Mort” (1959); and Terry Jacks’s “Seasons in the Sun” (1974), McKuen’s rather cloying translation of Brel’s 1961 song “Le Moribond” (“The Dying Man”). Brel became best known in the United States, however, through the 1968 Off-Broadway revue Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which was revived on Broadway in 1972 and filmed in 1975, featuring translations by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman.

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Brel announced his retirement from performing in 1966, with his final performance the following year, and he also released the album Jacques Brel 67. His next, and final, album, Les Marquises (1977), was rapturously received. A statue of Brel singing was unveiled in Brussels in 2017.

Brel also acted in 10 films from 1967 to 1973, two of which he directed. In addition, he adapted and translated the stage musical Man of La Mancha as L’Homme de la Mancha, and he both directed and played the lead in 1968 in Brussels and in a 1968–69 staging in Paris.