Léo Ferré was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.

Born in Monaco

Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues. He moved from music-hall to orchestral music, breaking free from the traditional song structure during the 1970s, inventing his own musical territory, powerfully dramatic and unique. He also set to music several poems by the French poètes maudits

Poète maudit

A poète maudit is a poet living a life outside or against society. Abuse of drugs and alcohol, insanity, crime, violence, and in general any societal sin, often resulting in an early death are typical elements of the biography of a poète maudit....

, such as François Villon

François Villon

François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...

, Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...

, Paul Verlaine

Paul Verlaine

Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...

, and Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

, as well as French poets from the 20th century like Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire

Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....

 and Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...

.

He took a central place in the French song world and is a prominent figure in this domain. He was involved in anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

 and worked with Radio Libertaire

Radio libertaire

Radio libertaire is the radio station of the Anarchist Federation in Paris, France.It was founded in 1981. By 1983 it had become one of the ten most popular stations in the Paris region....

, an anarchist free radio broadcasting in Paris and around France. Along with Georges Brassens

Georges Brassens

Georges Brassens , 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier...

 and Jacques Brel

Jacques Brel

Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...

, he is considered one of the greatest composers and writers of French songs

Music of France

France has a wide variety of indigenous folk music, as well as styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary composers, while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French hip hop, techno/funk,...

.

Studio albums

• 1953: Chansons
• 1953: Paris canaille
• 1954: Le Piano du pauvre
• 1956: s/t
• 1957: Les Fleurs du mal
• 1957: La Chanson du Mal-Aimé, de Guillaume Apollinaire
• 1958: Encore du Léo Ferré !
• 1960: Paname
• 1961: Les Chansons d'Aragon
• 1961: Les Chansons interdites… et autres
• 1962: La Langue française
• 1964: Ferré 64
• 1964: Verlaine et Rimbaud (2×LP)
• 1966: 1916-19…
• 1967: Cette chanson (la Marseillaise)
• 1967: Léo Ferré chante Baudelaire (2×LP)
• 1969: L'Été 68
• 1969: Les Douze Premières Chansons de Léo Ferré
• 1970: Amour Anarchie (2×LP)
• 1971: La Solitude
• 1972: La Chanson du Mal-Aimé, de Guillaume Apollinaire
• 1972: Léo Ferré in italiano/La Solitudine
• 1973: Il n'y a plus rien
• 1973: Et… basta !
• 1974: L'Espoir
• 1975: Ferré muet
• 1976: Je te donne
• 1977: La Frime
• 1977: La Musica mi prende come l'Amore
• 1979: Il est six heures ici et midi à New York
• 1980: La Violence et l'Ennui
• 1982: Ludwig - L'Imaginaire - Le Bateau ivre (3×LP)
• 1983: L'Opéra du pauvre (4×LP)
• 1985: Les Loubards
• 1987: On n'est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans (2×LP)
• 1990: Les Vieux copains
• 1991: Une saison en enfer

Live Albums

• 1955: Récital Léo Ferré à l'Olympia
• 1958: Léo Ferré à Bobino
• 1961: Récital à l'Alhambra (& à l'A.B.C.)
• 1969: Récital en public à Bobino 1969 (2×LP)
• 1973: Seul en scène (Olympia 72) (2×LP)
• 1984: Léo Ferré au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (3×LP)
• 2006: Léo Ferré au Théâtre libertaire de Paris (1986, 1988, 1990) (Box set)

Posthumous releases

• 1998: La Vie d'artiste: les années Le Chant du Monde 1947-1953 (2×CD)
• 2000: Métamec
• 2000: Le Temps des roses rouges
• 2001: Sur la scène (Lausanne 73, live) (2×CD)
• 2001: Un chien à Montreux (Montreux 73, maxi CD, live)
• 2004: De sacs et de cordes
• 2004: Maudits soient-ils ! (2×CD)
• 2006: La Mauvaise Graine
• 2008: Les Fleurs du mal (suite et fin)

External links

• Léo Ferré Official site
• Vinyl discography
• Recording of the unique interview with Georges Brassens
  Georges Brassens
  Georges Brassens , 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier...
  
   and Jacques Brel
  Jacques Brel
  Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
  
  , 6 January 1969]
• Pays-Âges de Léo Ferré a gallery of places and people in Ferré's life