Alain may refer to:

• Alain (name), both a surname and common given name
• 1969 Alain (1935 CG), a Main-belt Asteroid discovered in 1935
• Alain, Iran, a village in Tehran Province, Iran
• Al Ain International Airport in the United Arab Emirates
• Alain Afflelou, French retail chain specializing in optical services and sales of the Alain Afflelou brand of eyewear
• Alain (crab), Pinnotheridae genus
• Alain Van Kerckhoven éditeur, classical music publishing company based in Brussels, Belgium
• Émile Chartier (1868–1951), French philosopher and antimilitarist commonly known as Alain
• Prix Alain-Grandbois or Alain Grandbois Prize is awarded each year to an author for a book of poetry
• Rosa 'Alain', popular red floribunda rose variety
• Val-Alain, Quebec, village of 950 people in Quebec, Canada

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Alain Clark
Alain Clark, Westerpop 2008
Background information
Birth name	Alain Clark
Born	(1979-06-04) June 4, 1979 (age 33)
Origin	Haarlem, Netherlands
Genres	Soul, pop
Occupations	Singer
Years active	2004–present
Labels	8BallMusic,
Website	www.alainclark.com

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alain Clark

Alain Clark (born 4 June 1979 in Haarlem, The Netherlands) is a Dutch musician and producer.

Biography[link]

Alain Clark is born in Haarlem, the Netherlands. He went to there to the Coornhert Lyceum and also lived in the USA for 3 years to work on his songwriting skills. His first album was released in 2004, written and produced by himself, in Dutch and contained the hitsong Heerlijk.

As a producer he worked with Ali B and many others. He produced the debute album of singer Boris. He won the Dutch Zilveren Harp in 2004.

In January 2007 Clark worked on his first album in English. Steve Gadd played all drums on Live It Out, an album that went Gold after within 3 months. Today the album is 3 times Platinum, which means 180.000 copies are sold. The album contains hitsingles like This Ain't Gonna Work, which went straight to the Top 3 and stayed in the Dutch charts for 12 weeks, and the famous duet with his father Dane Clark titled Father and Friend. Dane Clark was the singer of the band Dane and the Dukes of Soul. After these two hitsingles, Blow Me Away reached the Dutch Top 10 as well. In the end of 2007 Alain received a Mega Award. In 2008 he received a 3FM Award and in 2009 he won the high respected Edison Music Award.

After his succes in The Netherlands, Alain Clark released the album in the United Kingdom, and reached the charts inItaly and Switzerland.

In 2010 Clark released his album Colorblind. It went Gold on the first day. It contains the singles Love Is Everywhere, Good Days and a duet with Diane Birch titled Too Soon To End. The album was released in Italy, Switzerland, Brasil and Latvia.

After Live It Out and Colorblind, both very successful records full of melodic soul, 32-year old Alain returns on Generation Love Revival to the passion of his youth: the groove. Alain: ‘At fifteen I mainly listened to hiphop artists. Like them I was only interested in rhythm and minimal melody. Those were my roots, that’s the way I started making music. On Generation Love Revival I return to that groove-based way of composing. And of course: I use all the experience of the years in between.’

‘I am proud of the cast. Besides Pablo Penton and Pablo Minoli, Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave (drums), Pino Palladino (bass) and Cleo ‘Pookie’ Sample (keyboards) contributed to the record.’ They also played on the last records of soul star D’Angelo and Adele.

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alain Clark official Dutch web site
• Alain Clark official UK web site
• Alain Clark French web site
• Review of Alain Clark's UK Showcase
• Alain Clark interview
• New album review
• Interview on Central FM, Spain. Click to listen

Alain de Botton
Born	(1969-12-20) 20 December 1969 (age 42) Zürich, Switzerland
Occupation	Writer, documentary maker
Nationality	Swiss
Period	1993–
Influences Seneca, Marcel Proust, Montaigne, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert
www.alaindebotton.com

Alain de Botton, FRSL (born Zurich, 20 December 1969) is a Swiss writer, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur, resident in the United Kingdom.^[1] His books and television programmes discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. At 23, he published Essays In Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004) and The Architecture Of Happiness (2006). In August 2008, he was a founding member of a new educational establishment in central London called The School of Life. In May 2009, he was a founding member of a new architectural organization called "Living Architecture".^[2][3] In October that year, de Botton was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in recognition of his services to architecture.^[4] In 2011, de Botton was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).^[5]

Early life and family[link]

Born in Zurich, de Botton comes from a Sephardic Jewish family, originating from a small Castilian town of Boton (now vanished) on the Iberian peninsula. His ancestors include Abraham de Boton.^[6] His paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer.^[7] His father, Gilbert de Botton, was the co-founder of Global Asset Management. His wealth was estimated by one source to be £234 million in 1999.^[8] He has one sister Miel and they received a secular upbringing.^[9] De Botton spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up to speak French and German.

Education[link]

He was sent to the Dragon School, a boarding school in Oxford, where English became his primary language. Describing himself as a shy child, he boarded at Harrow School, before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read History (1988–1991), graduating with a double starred first (MA), and subsequently completed a Master's degree (MPhil) in Philosophy at King's College, University of London (1991–1992).^[10] He began studying for a PhD in French philosophy at Harvard University,^[11] but gave up this research to write books for the general public.^[10]

Writing[link]

De Botton has written in a variety of formats to mixed response. Positive reviews of de Botton's books claim that he has made literature, philosophy and art more accessible to a wider audience.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}

Ambivalence is apparent in the following example,

de Botton's idea of bringing philosophy to the masses and presenting it in an nonthreatening manner (and showing how it might be useful in anyone's life), is admirable; the way he has gone about it is less so. —The Independent^[12]

Negative reviews allege that de Botton tends to state the obvious from a position of privilege^[17][18] and have characterized some of his books as pompous and lacking focus.^{[19][20][21][22]}

Essays[link]

De Botton has written books of essays in which his own experiences and ideas are interwoven with those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. These have been called a "philosophy of everyday life."^[23][24]

Fiction[link]

In his first novel, Essays In Love (titled On Love in the U.S.), published in 1993, de Botton deals with the process of falling in and out of love. The style of the book is unusual because it mixes elements of a novel with reflections and analyses normally found in non-fiction. In 2010, Essays in Love was adapted to film by director Julian Kemp for the romantic comedy My Last Five Girlfriends.

Non-fiction[link]

In 1997 he published his first non-fiction book, How Proust Can Change Your Life, based on the life and works of Marcel Proust.^[25] It is a mixture of a "self-help" envelope and analysis of one of the most revered books in the Western canon, In Search of Lost Time. It was a bestseller in the US and UK.^[26]

This was followed by The Consolations of Philosophy in 2000. The title of the book is a reference to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, in which philosophy appears as an allegorical figure to Boethius to console him in the period leading up to his impending execution. Though sometimes described as works of popularization,^[10] Proust and Consolations were attempts to develop original ideas about friendship, art, envy, desire, and inadequacy, among other things, with the help of thoughts of other thinkers.^[3] In The Consolations of Philosophy, de Botton attempts to demonstrate how the teachings of philosophers such as Epicurus, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Seneca, and Socrates can be applied to modern everyday woes such as unpopularity, feelings of inadequacy, financial worries, broken hearts, and the general problem of suffering. The book has been both praised and criticized for its therapeutic approach to philosophy.

De Botton then returned to a more lyrical, personal style of writing. In The Art of Travel, he looked at themes in the psychology of travel: how we imagine places before we see them, how we remember beautiful things, what happens to us when we look at deserts, stay in hotels, and go to the countryside.

In Status Anxiety (2004), de Botton examines an almost universal anxiety that is rarely mentioned directly: what others think of us; about whether we're judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser.

In The Architecture of Happiness^[27] (2006), he discusses the nature of beauty in architecture and how it is related to the well-being and general contentment of the individual and society. He describes how architecture affects people every day, though people rarely pay particular attention to it. A good portion of the book discusses how human personality traits are reflected in architecture. He ends up defending Modernist architecture, and chastising the pseudo-vernacular architecture of housing, especially in the UK. "The best modern architecture," he argues, "doesn't hold a mirror up to nature, though it may borrow a pleasing shape or expressive line from nature's copybook. It gives voice to aspirations and suggests possibilities. The question isn't whether you'd actually like to live in a Le Corbusier home, but whether you'd like to be the kind of person who'd like to live in one."

In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009),^[3] a survey of ten different jobs, including accountancy, rocket science and biscuit manufacture, which includes two hundred original images and aims to unlock the beauty, interest and occasional horror of the modern world of work.

In response to a question about whether he felt "pulled" to be a writer, de Botton responded:

So I think where people tend to end up results from a combination of encouragement, accident, and lucky break, etc. etc. Like many others, my career happened like it did because certain doors opened and certain doors closed. You know, at a certain point I thought it would be great to make film documentaries. Well, in fact, I found that to be incredibly hard and very expensive to do and I didn’t really have the courage to keep battling away at that. In another age, I might have been an academic in a university, if the university system had been different. So it’s all about trying to find the best fit between your talents and what the world can offer at that point in time.^[28]

In August 2009, de Botton replied to a competition advertised among British literary agents by BAA, the airport management company, for the post of "writer-in-residence" at Heathrow Airport. The post involved being seated at a desk in Terminal 5, and writing about the comings and goings of passengers over a week. De Botton was duly appointed to the position. The result was the book, A Week at the Airport, published by Profile Books in September 2009. The book features photographs by the documentary photographer Richard Baker, with whom de Botton also worked on The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.

In January 2012, de Botton published Religion for Atheists, a look at some of the more interesting and consoling benefits of religions for those who happen not to believe in them. As de Botton put it: 'Religions are in the end too complex, wise and fascinating to be abandoned simply to those who happen actually to believe in them'.

Newspapers, lecturing and television[link]

De Botton writes regular articles for several English newspapers, and from 1998 to 2000, wrote a regular column for The Independent on Sunday. He also travels extensively to lecture on his works. He owns and helps run his own production company, Seneca Productions, making television documentaries based on his works.^[29] De Botton has given lectures at TED conferences. In July 2011, he spoke in Edinburgh about "Atheism 2.0", an idea of atheism that also incorporates our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence.^[30] In July 2009, he also spoke in Oxford about the philosophy of failure and success, and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments.^[31]

Other projects[link]

[edit] The School of Life

De Botton's project from 2008 is The School of Life – a new cultural enterprise based in central London aiming to offer instruction on how to lead a fulfilled life. In an interview with metkere.com^[32] de Botton said:

The idea is to challenge traditional universities and reorganize knowledge, directing it towards life, and away from knowledge for its own sake. In a modest way, it’s an institution that is trying to give people what universities should I think always give them: a sense of direction and wisdom for their lives with the help of culture.^[33]

[edit] Living Architecture

In May 2009, de Botton was named as the chief inspiration for a new architecture project called "Living Architecture"^[34] – which proposes to build a series of innovative houses in the UK using leading contemporary architects. These include Peter Zumthor, MVRDV, JVA, NORD and Michael and Patti Hopkins. The houses will be rented out to the general public. De Botton's aim is to improve the appreciation of good contemporary architecture – and seems a practical continuation of his theoretical work on architecture in his book The Architecture of Happiness. In October 2009, de Botton was appointed an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in recognition of his services to architecture.^[4]

Personal life[link]

De Botton has described his relationship with his father as difficult, stating: "When I sold my first bestseller (and a million dollars was peanuts for my father) he was not impressed and rather wondered what I was going to do with myself."^[35] When his father died, his family was left a large trust fund,^[36] although de Botton says his income is derived solely from the proceeds of his book sales.^[37][38][39] His stepmother Janet de Botton is a prominent patron of the arts and competition bridge player.^[40] De Botton lives in London.^[41]

Publications[link]

• Essays In Love (1993), also published as On Love: A Novel (2006)
• The Romantic Movement (1994)
• Kiss and Tell (1995)
• How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)
• The Consolations of Philosophy (2000)
• The Art of Travel (2002)
• Status Anxiety (2004)
• The Architecture of Happiness (2006)
• The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)
• A Week at the Airport (2009)
• Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion (2012)

Filmography[link]

• My Last Five Girlfriends (based on Essays in Love)

TV series[link]

• Philosophy: A Guide To Happiness (from The Consolations of Philosophy)

1. Socrates on Self-Confidence
2. Epicurus on Happiness
3. Seneca on Anger
4. Montaigne on Self-Esteem
5. Schopenhauer on Love
6. Nietzsche on Hardship (featuring Cathal Grealish)

• Status Anxiety (film)
• The Art Of Travel Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon
• The Perfect Home (from The Architecture of Happiness)

Radio[link]

In 2011 he presented a series of talks for the BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View.

• What Humanities Should Teach: Arguing teachers of humanities in universities have only themselves to blame for cuts in funding.
• News and Concentration: Examining our inability to concentrate.
• The Ecological Sublime: A philosopher's take on ecological dilemmas.
• Are Museums Our New Churches?: Argues that museums could learn from churches with regard to getting their message across.
• In Praise of the Nanny State: Asks why the idea of a Nanny State is so unappealing.
• On Marriage: Muses on why a bookish life is a poor preparation for marriage.
• In Praise of the Zoo: Muses on the value of exotic animals in giving perspective on our own lives.
• The Art of Conversation: Questions why we put so much effort into social encounters but leave conversation to chance.
• What's in a Marriage?: Argues that expecting one person to be a good partner, lover and parent is, almost, asking the impossible.
• On Social Climbing: Argues that social climbing should be seen as evidence of a natural curiosity about the modern world.
• Modern Parenting: Takes a witty look at modern parenting.
• The Advantages of Pessimism: Why pessimism is the key to happiness.
• A Point of View: podcast

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2012)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alain de Botton

• Alain de Botton official site
• Alain de Botton official Twitter
• Living Architecture
• Open Library. Works by de Botton
• Compendium of reviews of The Consolations of Philosophy
• Archived web chat
• Interview with 3AM Magazine (2002)
• Alain de Botton interview: "The City as a Cure for Loneliness"
• Alain de Botton at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Colin Marshall
• Alain de Botton at TedGlobal filmed on July 2009: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success
• Audio: Alain de Botton in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The Forum

Alain Bashung
Alain Bashung
Background information
Birth name	Alain Bashung
Born	(1947-12-01)1 December 1947 Paris, France
Died	14 March 2009(2009-03-14) (aged 61) Paris, France
Genres	Rock
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active	1966–2009
Labels	Barclay Records
Website	www.alainbashung.fr

Alain Bashung (born Alain Baschung [alɛ̃ baʃuŋ]) (1 December 1947 – 14 March 2009) was a French singer, songwriter and actor.

Biography[link]

Youth[link]

Alain Bashung was the son of a Breton factory worker and French Kabyle father, whom he never knew.^[1] His mother remarried, and at the age of one, Bashung was sent to Strasbourg to live with his new stepfather's parents. He spent his childhood in the countryside.

Career[link]

A multi-platinum artist, Bashung received three awards during the ceremony at the Paris Zenith, including best male artist, best album for "Bleu Pétrole" (Barclay/Universal) and best live show. He spent his career singing a pop-chanson repertoire. With 11 trophies won since 1993, he was the most awarded artist in the history of the Victoires de la Musique. Bashung, who had cancer, had to postpone several dates of his last tour. While receiving his award, he said he hoped that record companies would "remain in a human dimension by making people happy with records."

Long beginnings

• 1966 : "Pourquoi rêvez-vous des États-Unis ?" (first record, 45 tours) ; arranger for RCA ; writes and composes
• 1968 : "Les Romantiques", first (and rare) single
• 1972–1974 : (co)realizes and writes in 3 albums for Dick Rivers
• 1973 : plays on stage Robespierre in the musical La Révolution française

Boris Bergman

• The success comes with the lyricist Boris Bergman, the single "Gaby oh Gaby" in 1980 (after two albums in 1977 and 1979) and their third album, Pizza (with the tube "Vertige de l'amour") in 1981.
• 1982 : Bashung breaks with Boris Bergman, no success for the album Play blessures, in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg ; Bashung is described by one critic as the « Johnny Hallyday New-wave »...
• 1983 : album Figure imposée – no more success
• 1985 : "Touche pas à mon pote", single for the association SOS Racisme
• 1986 : Passé le Rio Grande, album with Boris Bergman and the tube "SOS Amor", and Victoires de la musique (TV show) ; surprise success for Bashung (not very satisfied)
• 1989 : Novice, first official collaboration with the lyricist Jean Fauque and last with Boris Bergman

Jean Fauque

• 1991 : Osez Joséphine with the tubes "Osez Joséphine" (first real popular tube since "Vertige de l'amour") and "Madame rêve" in a new vein.
• 1992 : Bashung sings "Les Mots bleus", old tube by the eternal Christophe in a compilation for AIDS research.
• 1994 : Chatterton, "Country New Age album" (according to Bashung), with the tube "Ma petite entreprise".
• 1997 : "City", duet with Brigitte Fontaine in Les Palaces
• 1998 : Fantaisie militaire (collaborations with Jean Fauque, Rodolphe Burger, Les Valentins, Jean-Marc Lederman, Adrian Utley (Portishead), Joseph Racaille) with, as first single, the tube "La nuit je mens" ; wins 3 victoires de la musique in 1999 and, in 2005, during the twentieth edition of the Victoires de la Musique, Fantaisie Militaire becomes "best album of the last twenty years".

Other collaborations

• 2000 : Climax, double album and compilation, with the duet "Volontaire" with Noir Désir ; Bashung writes "L'eau et le vin" for Vanessa Paradis (in album Bliss).
• 2002 : Alain Bashung sings (or says) with his wife Chloé Mons "Le Cantique des cantiques", the song of Solomon, in a new traduction by Olivier Cadiot (music by Rodolphe Burger).
• 2003 : sings "Avec le temps" in Avec Léo, tribute to Léo Ferré.
• 2004 : La Tournée des grands espaces, double live album.
• 2005 : sings "Le sud" in On dirait Nino, tribute to Nino Ferrer.
• 2006 : sings "Que reste-t-il de nos amours" (written by Charles Trenet), duet with Françoise Hardy in Parenthèses ; on stage with Christophe, Dominique A, Rodolphe Burger et Arto Lindsay.
• 2007, Les Aventuriers d'un autre monde, tour with Jean-Louis Aubert, Cali, Daniel Darc, Richard Kolinka et Raphaël ; Bashung plays the British myth, Jack l'éventreur, in the song "Panique Mécanique", in La Mécanique du cœur (album by Dionysos) ; plays with Arno (themselves) in the film J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster (director : Samuel Benchetrit).
• 2008 : sings "L.U.V.", duet with Daniel Darc, in Amours suprêmes ; "I Can't Escape from You", duet with Étienne Daho, in the Daho Show ; (re)records the classic album L'Homme à tête de chou (Serge Gainsbourg) for stage.

Last albums

• 2002 : L'Imprudence, inspired by music from old films according to Alain Bashung.
• 2008 : Bleu pétrole (collaborations with Gaëtan Roussel (Louise Attaque), Arman Méliès and Gérard Manset – Bashung sings "Il voyage en solitaire", last track of his last album).

Final months[link]

On 1 January 2009, Bashung was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur.^[2] On 28 February 2009, he received three prestigious Victoires de la Musique awards for his final album Bleu pétrole. The 2009 award ceremony was his last public appearance. He appeared frail, but still performed "Résidents de la République."

Bashung died in Paris on 14 March 2009 from lung cancer at the age of 61. He was buried on 20 March 2009 in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Discography[link]

Studio Albums[link]

Singles[link]

Live albums[link]

• 1985 : Live Tour 85
• 1992 : Tour novice
• 1995 : Confessions publiques
• 2004 : La Tournée des grands espaces

Filmography[link]

Actor[link]

• 1981 : Nestor Burma, détective de choc de Jean-Luc Miesch
• 1981 : Le Cimetière des voitures de Fernando Arrabal
• 1991 : Rien que des mensonges de Paule Muret
• 1992 : L'Ombre du doute de Aline Issermann
• 1994 : Ma sœur chinoise de Alain Mazars
• 1995 : Le Jeu de la clé de Michel Hassan
• 1998 : Mon père, ma mère, mes frères et mes sœurs... de Charlotte de Turckheim
• 1999 : Je veux tout de Patrick Braoudé
• 2000 : La Confusion des Genres de Ilan Duran Cohen
• 2000 : Retour à la vie de Pascal Baeumler (avec Emmanuelle Laborit)
• 2000 : Félix et Lola de Patrice Leconte
• 2000 : L'Origine du monde de Jérôme Enrico
• 2002 : La Bande du drugstore de François Armanet
• 2003 : Le P'tit Curieux de Jean Marbœuf
• 2006 : Arthur et les Minimoys de Luc Besson (voix de M Le maudit)
• 2007 : J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster de Samuel Benchetrit

Composer[link]

• 1981 : Nestor Burma, détective de choc de Jean-Luc Miesch
• 1985 : Le Quatrième Pouvoir de Serge Leroy
• 1986 : Le Beauf de Yves Amoureux
• 1992 : Le Jeune Werther de Jacques Doillon
• 1994 : Pigalle de Karim Dridi
• 1999 : Ma petite entreprise de Pierre Jolivet

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alain Bashung – Official Website
• Alain Bashung – Website (discography, songs, news)
• Listen to Alain Bashung's discography
• IMDb
• Alain Bashung: Revered singer and actor described as 'the gentleman rocker of French chanson' , obituary from The Independent
• Alain Bashung dies, Radio France Internationale in English
• Site sur Alain Bashung
• Ma Petite Entreprise : The Life of Alain Bashung, featured at http://www.4ortherecord.com

Alain Barrière (born Alain Bellec, 18 November 1935 in La Trinité-sur-Mer, Morbihan) is a French singer, who has been active since the 1950s and is known for participating in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest.

Early life[link]

After growing up in a small town on the coast of Brittany, in 1955 Barrière enrolled in the École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers in Angers. As a student he bought a guitar and started to write songs. On graduating in engineering in 1960, he moved to Paris to take up employment, and started to perform in the evenings at small clubs around the capital. He won a song contest in 1961 with the self-penned song "Cathy"; his style was chanson-based with no concession to the burgeoning yé-yé scene, but nonetheless he was soon signed to a recording contract and started to release singles regularly, enabling him to give up his job and make at least a modest living from music.^[1]

Eurovision Song Contest[link]

In 1963, Barrière's song "Elle était si jolie" ("She Was So Pretty") was chosen as the French representative in the eighth Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 23 March in London. "Elle était si jolie" finished fifth of 16 entries.^[2]

Success[link]

"Elle était si jolie" turned out to be by far the biggest seller of Barrière's career to that point. He released his first album, Ma vie, in 1964 and the title-track became a huge hit. In 1965 he was offered, and accepted, a leading role in a heist thriller, Pas de panique, alongside Pierre Brasseur.^[3] This would be his only venture into acting, but his singing career reached its peak in the latter part of the decade with a string of hits making him one of France's biggest stars and a sell-out live attraction.

1970s[link]

Barrière had gained a reputation for being uncompromising and at times difficult to work with. In the early 1970s he left his record company to set up his own label. He kept his fanbase, which ensured his records and concerts continued to provide a good living, despite his being overlooked by sections of the French broadcast media. "Tu t'en vas", a 1975 duet with fellow Eurovision veteran Noëlle Cordier, topped the French chart, and was the third biggest-selling single of the year in Switzerland.

Barrière married in 1975 and he and his wife opened a nightclub-restaurant in a converted castle in Brittany. Although it proved a successful and popular venue, Barrière soon found himself facing severe tax problems, a result of dubious advice. In 1977 he took his family to the USA, where they remained for four years.^[1]

Later life[link]

After returning to France, Barrière made several comeback attempts, to little avail. After another period spent overseas, this time in Quebec, the family were back in Brittany when Barrière's career was unexpectedly rejuvenated by the 1997 release of a CD containing remastered versions of his old hits, which proved to be a money-spinner. Shortly afterwards, Barrière released an album of new material, which also sold well.

He published an autobiography in 2006 and continues to release both retrospective and newly-recorded albums.^[4]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

• 1963: "Elle était si jolie"
• 1963: "Plus je t'entends"
• 1964: "Ma vie"
• 1968: "Emporte-moi"
• 1968: "Tout peut recommencer"
• 1969: "C'était aux premiers jours d'avril"
• 1969: "Viva ouagadougou"
• 1970: "À regarder la mer"
• 1971: "Si tu ne me revenais pas"
• 1971: "La Mer"
• 1972: "Elle"
• 1973: "Pour la dernière fois"
• 1974: "Le Bel amour"
• 1974: "Séduction 13"
• 1975: "Tu t'en vas" (with Noëlle Cordier)
• 1975: "Celtina"
• 1975: "Mon improbable amour"
• 1976: "Si tu te souviens"
• 1978: "Et tu fermes les yeux"

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alain Barrière's website
• Discography and cover art at encyclopédisque.fr