an unexpected gem

One of the fun things about going through CDs that I got off Freecycle is when I come across something that I had never heard of, yet really like. All the more if its a CD that, based on the cover, I expect to not like. I'm human, and just like everyone else, I make judgements when I see a CD cover -- what genre, whether I will like it or not, etc.

So I came across an album by someone I had never heard of -- Henri Salvador. It's obviously a French language album, it's called l'essentiel, and it has a picture of a greasy old man with a shit-eating grin on the cover. I wasn't expecting much. But I gave it a shot anyway.

There was a version of "Mah-na Mah-na," titled "Mais non, Mais non" (which I understand means "But no, But no."). That was fun. But what really got me was "Zorro est Arrive" which seems to be a French reworking of the Coasters classic, "Along Came Jones" (presumably with Zorro as the title character." And there were other playful numbers -- more than enough to make this a keeper.

Never having heard of Henri Salvador, I decided to ask our couchsurfers (by coincidence we happened to have some French couchsurfers over), and they clearly recognized him. Apparently he's a big star in France. Or at least he was until he died in 2008 at age 90. I learned that last fact looking him up on Wikipedia. I'm glad I gave him a listen. Now it's your turn: