Sylvie Vartan Argentina 1965

In the mid 60s, if London, its pop groups and its "Mod" culture were leading the avant-garde, Paris with its sophisticated ye-ye youth wasn't far behind. Especially the girls, where France typically leads the way in terms of beauty and sophistication. Singers like the slender (almost ethereal) Françoise Hardy attracted the most intellectual, but it was Sylvie Vartan, a blonde temptation, who broke down the barriers by appealing to a large majority (...) It's because Vartan was an enchantress, quite simply. Modest vocal ability (but exquisite taste in the way she sang), with her audacious miniskirts (my god, what long beautiful legs Sylvie had in the 60s!), a sensuality somewhere between coldness and childishness, and her style (that nowadays we would call "casual"), with no style she wouldn't wear, from the latest creation of Parisian Haute-Couture to simple faded jeans… Remember also she came to us just after her marriage to the famous French rocker Johnny Hallyday. Despite having French nationality, her family came from the Balkans and central Europe and in fact there was something vaguely slavic in her look and her prominent cheekbones, details that gave her already beautiful face a particular, distant allure.

For once, Buenos Aires had the chance to welcome an artist at the height of their career, in June 1965… Sylvie arrived after her honeymoon with Hallyday in the Canary Islands during a world tour begun in Tokyo and that culminated in Buenos Aires. She was accompanied by her own musicians (led by her brother Eddie). Amongst them were the talented  Micky Jones and Tommy Brown, that brought a little English touch to this new ye-ye style that was at the same time very Parisian and very personal. The newspaper "La nacion" published a remarkable report on the appearance of the singer at the Teatro Opera. Firstly a slightly strict critique where the talent of the singer was emphasised to better tear apart the rest of the show, which included "Fantasia de la juventud" and the excellent Uruguayan band "Los shakers". In the June 13 edition the paper did full justice to Vartan, dedicating a special page to her with splendid photos (in one you can see Sylvie's musicians rehearsing with those from the band "Los shakers") and an article filled with praise for this rarity that nature happily presents from time to time: a very beautiful woman with talent and a style both personal and mysterious.

Excellent performance by Sylvie Vartan

"The show organised to present the young franco-bulgarian singer in the large auditorium of the Opera featured a fair few dissapointments, such as the part titled Fantasia de la juventud that attempted to offer a complete array of young people's musical tastes, from love songs to rock, can can and twist, proving a sometimes rather obvious lack of taste. To that you add a discreet solo performance by the singer Horacio Molina, then joined by the band Los shakers. They didn't manage to raise the standard of this first half that could have done with appearances from artists with more obvious stage talent, given the quality of the guest of honour. Sylvie Vartan's appearance on stage completely changed the course of the evening as through her particular individual talents she knew how to give an artistic dimension that we couldn't have expected from these new musical styles currently so popular with young people. Obviously as a popular singer Sylvie Vartan has exceptional charisma that charms spectators and she makes the audience participate actively and physically in her songs where rhythm dominates. And when she enters into a more sentimental or romantic repertoire, whether in English or in French, she shows with admirable ease vocal and stylistic qualities that go way beyond what's typical in the genre. Right from the start with her silhouette that's both slim and tight she dominates the whole room thanks to her warm voice that she almost always accompanies with mimes and appropriate gestures. Her stagecraft is remarkable, her presentation generally excellent, with the exception of the musical accompaniment as the group that accompanies her, directed by her brother Eddie Vartan and consisting of an organ, two electric guitars, a trumpet and two saxophones, even if it fulfills it's purpose, often plays too loud with regards to the vocal capacities of a pop singer who in the end will have made excellent impressions". 

"LA NACION"     SABADO 5 DE JUNIO DE 1965

With rehearsals in full swing, we can see Sylvie alongside two members of her band, Micky Jones and Tommy Brown, the drummer and the guitarist, only English players in the band and writers of a few songs performed by Sylvie in her Buenos Aires concerts.

She arrived at Eseiza airport with a Jack London book under her arm followed by her bodyguard, her sound engineer and seven musicians. Forty-eight hours later, she was striding down the Corrientes avenue dressed in chinos, a yellow sweater and black boots - we bought the same ones here for a tenth of the price in Paris - without any adult recognising her...

Without a doubt, Sylvie Vartan is already famous amongst a whole generation. Teenagers see her as the main figure of the French 'New Wave'. She sells at least 200,000 copies of every record she releases, she earns astronomical sums of money and she just signed a contract with Fox for the shooting of five films, after having refused an offer from Jean-Luc Godard. Nothing of all that seems to phase her all that much. She tallies her successes without a smile, almost indifferent; she prefers to talk about the poncho that she just bought in Buenos Aires which she's going to use as a blanket in her magnificent country house in Grossouvre - "we're currently decorating it in a Spanish and Mexican style" -, about songs by Charles Aznavour, about René Clément and Truffaut, her two favourite directors, and about Johnny Hallyday -  "I can't quite define him, he is very shy and reserved" - to whom she got married two months ago in Loconville.

It was only once on stage behind her microphone and backed up by her band that she starts to be herself and speak her own language, in her own rhythm - "Si je chante" -  "Dans tes bras" -  "La plus belle pour aller danser", such is Sylvie Vartan, the idol of millions of admirers. In fact it all started four years ago in the bar of the "Golf Drouot", a minigolf centre near Paris. It was there that appeared some of the first French imitations of the rock that was all the rage in America. Johnny was singing, and Sylvie was dancing the "mashed potato". She was sixteen and it was eight years ago that she had arrived from Bucharest with her family. It wasn't long before her brother Eddie, who led a small orchestra and who had a contract with a record company, suggested that it should be his sister who sings on the track "Panne d’essence", one of the first rock songs in French. "I don't know if she sang well" he said, "but she has a lot of rhythm".

Not only did she sing well, but she stamped her own rhythm and style on the track. The following year, her records and those of Johnny Hallyday, Richard Anthony and Françoise Hardy sold in their thousands. The "Ye-ye" style saw its moment of crowning glory in 1962, when an impressive crowd of "copains" gathered at the Palais des Sports to listen to its biggest stars.

During this time the French and American reviews announced that Sylvie had created a new style for French teenagers. Her clothes and her hairstyles were copied all across France and her image as the ideal fiancée brought the success that Brigitte Bardot was starting to lose. "Time" magazine had this to say about the end of the "BB era": "There was a time when the avenue des Champs-Elysées could have been called the avenue Bardot, for all the French people that imitated her feline style. Today it has become the "Avenue des yéyés" thanks to Miss Vartan, a blonde full of grace, with a mouth like a tulip and childlike eyes"...