Ria Bartok

The daughter of a fighter pilot and amateur opera singer, Marie-Louise Pleiss, known as Ria Bartok, was born in Einbeck, Germany, on January 28, 1943. Brought up by her mother after her father's death in the Second World War, she learned music from her grandfather and moved to London to learn English, before arriving in Paris to study in 1962. Hired after an audition for the Ricordi label, she took the pseudonym Ria Bartok and recorded "Parce que j'ai revu François", an adaptation of Dickey Lee's "I Saw Linda Yesterday", which met with some success in 1963. Other singles and EPs followed, especially adaptations of American titles, until her best-known song, "Et Quelque chose me dit", adapted from Goffin-King's "I'm Into Something Good " for The Herman's Hermits and released by Columbia in 1965. It featured alongside eleven other adaptations on her only album released the same year. Over the years, Ria Bartok has recorded many of her songs in English, German, Italian and Spanish. After performing at the Colisée in Quebec (Canada) in November 1966, the singer gave her last concert in France on May 13, 1967. She gave up singing to devote herself to teaching English and German in a private school when, on February 28, 1970, she died in a hotel room at the age of 27, having fallen asleep without putting out her cigarette.

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