Serge Kerval

Composer, guitarist and performer Serge Kerval was born on April 2, 1939 in Brest, France. It was in the cabarets of Paris's Left Bank that the artist took his first steps on stage at the dawn of the 1960s. In 1962, a 2-volume set of his Chansons pour les jeunes was released , featuring covers of songs by Jean Boyer, a songwriter from the early 20th century. The adventurous artist quickly became a representative of French chanson abroad, and in 1965 began recording albums of traditional songs from all French regions, with five volumes of his Chansons des pays de France appearing until 1972. The first volume won him the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros in 1966. In 1971, he released an album of French adaptations of Bob Dylan songs. In 1982, he set Victor Hugo's poems to music. In 1988, he tackled the repertoire of revolutionary songs, Chansons, Révolutions ou l'esprit de 1789. In 1990, he sang Alfred de Musset. In 1993, he published Les insolites de Jules Verne . For most of his life, he kept French culture alive in the United States, particularly in Louisiana, with the album De la Loire au Mississipi (1982). He wrote a few songs, but the vast majority of his repertoire was made up of re-adaptations. His last two albums, 35 ans de chanson, 35 ans de passion and Serge Kerval chante Jacques Durand-Desjeux, were released in 1996. He died on June 4, 1998 in Nantes, leaving an impressive discography of some forty albums.

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