Jean-Michel Delpech (26 January 1946 – 2 January 2016), known as Michel Delpech, was a French singer-songwriter and actor.

Jean-Michel Bertrand Delpech was born the 26th January in 1946 in Courbevoie, a city located in the Parisian suburbs. Part of the baby boom, he was the son of Bertrand Charles Delpech, a chrome metal plater and Christiane Cécile Marie Josselin, a housewife. He had two younger sisters named Catherine and Martine.

His maternal family (Josselin) are winegrowers in Gyé-sur-Seine in the Aube department. His father's ancestral home is in Sologne, more specifically in Dhuizon, where his hairdresser grandfather lived and also in La Ferté-Saint-Cyr, where his uncles and cousins worked as grocers, loggers and farmers. The young Michel spent weekends and holidays with his provincial family, sometimes working in his aunt’s grocery store.

Its parents having moved to Cormeilles-en-Parisis in Seine-et-Oise (today known as Val-d’Oise), Jean-Michel Delpech studied in the Chabanne college and in the Pontoise’s Camille-Pissarro high-school from 1961 to 1964.

As a teenager he got passionate about famous classic fingers such as Luis Mariano, and then for the great names from the 1950s such as Gilbert Nécaud and Charles Aznavour. In 1963, in high school, he created a little orchestra with his schoolmates.

Before taking his final exams, he left high school in January 1964 to focus on singing. He took a chance by attending an audition in Paris to join the disque Vogue record company. At age 18, he released his first record called Anatole, and met composer Roland Vincent. While going to Roland’s house based in Saint-Cloud for a working session, he rethinks about his high school years and about the café he used to go with his mates after the school day. On the train, between Saint Lazare and Saint Cloud train station, he writes the lyrics of Chez Laurette, for which Roland Vincent felt seduced and inspired and quickly found a melody. Released the 1st of May 1965, during the yé yé period, this nostalgic teenager music wasn't a success at its release, but thanks to the numerous radio streams, he started to experience a slight celebrity.

In 1965, Michel Delpech attended a musical comedy Copains-Clopant, which was featured for 6 months, before at the Michodière theater and then at the Gymnase Theater in Paris: the integration of the Chez Laurette Music helped him to be famous. During this musical comedy, Delpech meets Chantal SImon, who he sang a song with. Then he’ll marry her at the age of 20 in 1966.

The same year, under the Festival Label, he recorded its 2nd 45 laps: Inventaire 1966, new stepping stone towards the star status. As Jacques Prévert and as a tribute to the poetry, he compiles in the verse of the music, a list of news such as the Vietnam war, the minijupe, the Courrèges boots, the Cacharel trend, the flower shirts,etc. Still in 1966, he made the first part during 38 shows of Jacques Brell who said goodbye to the Olympia. ...

Source: Article "Michel Delpech" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.