LiveOne
Francis Lai, who died at his home in Nice aged 86 on 7th November 2018, was an acclaimed French film composer known best for his Academy Award-winning music for the hit 1970 drama 'Love Story'. Lauded for his romantic and melodic themes, he wrote the scores for more than 100 movies and many radio and television productions spanning from 1966 to 2017. Born in Nice, he learned to play the accordion as a child and performed with local orchestras before moving to Paris in the 1950s where he performed with singer Claude Goaty, had a stint with Michel Magne's orchestra and wrote songs for and accompanied iconic performer Edit Piaf. He met French New Wave director Claude Lelouch in 1965 and composed the indelible themes for his 1966 film 'A Man and a Woman'. They would go on to collaborate on 35 feature films over the next 50 years including 'Un + Une' (2015), 'Everyone's Life' (2017) and 'Les Plus Belles Années', which was due for release in 2019. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his 'Theme from Love Story', which reached number 21 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart and number 31 on the Hot 100 in 1971. Henry Mancini's version went to number two on the Adult Contemporary Chart. Lai's song from the picture 'Where Do I Begin', with lyrics by Carl Sigman and sung by Andy Williams, topped the Adult Contemporary Chart and reached number nine on the Hot 100. It also was recorded by country singer Roy Clark and by Shirley Bassey. Many of his soundtracks were released as albums including the Golden Globe-nominated 'A Man and a Woman' (1966) and 'Live for Life' (1967), 'Rider in the Rain' (1970), 'Bilitis' (1977) and 'Mayerling' (2003). A compilation titled 'Francis Lai - 30 Years of Film Music 1966-1996' was released in 1996, 'Francis Lai - Essential Film Music Collection' came out in 2011 and 'Francis Lai Anthology' with 135 tracks was issued in 2016.
Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.
