From The 2017 Archives- French Rocker Johnny
Halliday Passes At 74-Hail, Hail Rock and Roll-“The Greatest Rocker You Have
Never Heard Of”
By Josh Breslin
[As of December 1, 2017
under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought
in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site
administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of
some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the
habit of assigning writers to specific topics like film, books, political
commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in
this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a
short-lived experiment designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation
of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade”
all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
*****
If you have read the
above note you know that there has been great internal turmoil on this site of
late with the “exile” to as of today an unknown place Allan Jackson (who used
the moniker Peter Paul Markin on this site, a man he knew from high school and
I knew from meeting out in the Summer of Love, 1967 San Francisco) the former
site administrator, really managing editor and publisher combined. A commentary
on a passing public figure, in this case legendary rocker, Johnny Halliday, the
French “Elvis” of cancer at 74 would not normally be the place to bring up
those squabbles however enlightening in other contexts. But as noted in the
headline of this piece Johnny was according to more than one source “the
greatest rocker that you have never heard of.” At least in the English-speaking world that he
was never able to break into.
As I write this short
tribute/commentary I have just noticed on the news feed that in Paris something
like a million people have lined the streets of Paris, including every
high-ranking dignitary and political of the past generation, to bid farewell to
Johnny as the casket goes by. And every self-respecting French “Motorcycle
Bill” as well so you can see that in France he was without any doubt he was
beloved. The place where Johnny virtually unknown in America and the recently
concluded internal strife at American
Left History meet is what I want to mention since it was at least partially
Allan’s stubbornness which if you check the archives makes not a single mention
of Johnny despite the overwhelming space given to his, our growing up rock and
roll music which has been given more than amble space. More than amble space
for Anglo-American rock and roll but has given, had consciously given, short
shrift to other rock and roll traditions, I guess you would call it “world
music” traditions due entirely to the whims of Allan Jackman. (I would note
here that I whole-heartedly supported Allan in the struggle against the “Young
Turks” but he certainly was, is a man who had his short-comings including a certain
narrowing of subject matter vision with age.)
As I have mentioned I
have known Allan for a long time and up until a few years ago he acted much as
he had when I first met him out in San Francisco those many years ago when we
were all trying to turn the world upside down but then something changed, maybe
like Zack James, one of the “Young Turks” noted, he just grew old (he is over
seventy)-and cranky. He just wanted to withdraw back to that 1960s personal experience
stuff and the hell with the rest of it. Part of the problem I think is that Allan
finally realized that he would not outshine the long gone and still lamented
despite his tragic and unnecessary fate Scribe’s star (the “real” Markin moniker).
Even back in the day he was always in the shadow of Scribe, always a bit off-putting
when around him. That is why the direct causes of his downfall, the eternal Dylan
syndrome and the over-the-top stuff around the Summer of Love, loomed so large
since he had somehow staked his whole reputation to finally best Scribe on those
twice pillars. Twin pillars of sand.
Lest you think that I am
getting off point here, not doing real justice to the late Johnny Halliday far
from it. This fatal flaw stubbornness, obtuseness in Allan was always somewhere
in the background. Where it came up in relationship to Johnny (and the whole emergence
of “world music” in Johnny’s wake, or a strand of it anyway) was that narrow definition
in his mind of rock and roll being in a time warp from about 1955 to 1965 and
anything after or different did not exist. And in America with a slight tolerance
for England. It might have been worse since he hated the Beatles (as in truth we
all did mocking them as a modern day vaudeville act, what they call in England
a music hall act except when they covered American rock and roll songs from the
1950s from guys like Chuck Berry) but loved the Stones to perdition since they
cherished the blues root of rock as much as he did (under Scribe’s guidance I might
add). Beyond that if you asked him to assign you say African drum music, or Latin
America rhumbas, he would frown that imperial frown that said no dice, forget
it, get out of town.
But you see I, maybe alone
in America, in critic circles anyway, knew Johnny Halliday as part of my growing
up rock and roll immersion back in the 1960s during my high school days (Class
of 1967). I grew up in Olde Saco in Maine, in French-Canadian come down form
the farms in Quebec to the Maine and New Hampshire mill towns to find that pot of
American streets gold through my mother (nee LeBlanc) so I spoke the patois growing
up as much as English. Knew from cousins in Quebec this big Johnny Elvis-like
sound coming from France-rock and roll in French forget the Maurice Chevalier
chanson noise my mother loved. Belt out rock for bikers, babes and be-boppers to
go crazy over. I tried more than a few times to get Allan interested in my doing
stuff on Johnny over the years so that he could get a hearing in the English-speaking
world. A little beachhead as Elvis, as the Stones found out would go a long way.
So this site, Allan, must take their small part as millions of French people bid
their Johnny adieu is why he is the greatest rocker you have never heard of. Meanwhile,
RIP, Johnny, RIP.
