Joe Dassin: every woman thought he sang just for her

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Songs for decades Joe Dassin top the lists of the most lyrical compositions in the world. The unusual intonations of his velvet baritone made women think that Joe Dassin was singing for them. And to his music, young couples still confess their love to each other. Some interesting facts of the singer's life are discussed further in the review.

Joe (Joseph Ira) Dassin was born into a creative family in America in 1938. His father, Jules Dassin, was a filmmaker, and his mother, Beatrice Lohner-Dassin, was a violinist in the orchestra. Curiously, both of Joe's grandfathers were immigrants from the Russian Empire. Paternal grandfather, Shmul (who became Samuel) Dassin was a Jew from Odessa, and his mother's father Luis Lohner came to America from Bugach (Galicia, present-day Ukraine).

In 1949, the father, who at that time sympathized with the Communists, because of the aggravated situation in the country, decided to move with the whole family to Paris. But after 6 years, Jules Dassin files for divorce. Joe is very much going through the breakup of his parents and returns to America.

There Joe enters the University of Michigan and decides to study medicine, which he dreamed of since childhood. But when the young man saw how animals were cut for experiments, he switched to ethnology. After graduating from university, Joe Dassin returned to Paris and established a relationship with his father.

Being shy by nature, Joe Dassin did not immediately recognize the fact that a singing career was his vocation. He saw himself as a journalist or writer. Once his first wife Marise Massiera decided to make a gift to her husband - an amateur recording of his songs on the radio. His country music compositions did not impress the public. But when, at Maryse's insistence, Joe Dassin met with the "right" people and sang in French, he was immediately hit by popularity.

Surprisingly, in the late 1960s - early 1970s, when rock music was gaining momentum, a singer who performed lyric music was at the top of the charts. A velvety baritone, attractive appearance, and a special manner of being on stage disposed the audience to the singer. When Joe sang, “Hello, it's me again. I returned from distant countries … You know, I missed you so much …”- every woman in the audience thought that he was addressing her.

For almost fifteen years, Joe Dassin had a resounding success not only in France, but also in the USA, Canada, Africa, in all European countries and in the Soviet Union.

Joe Dassin's songs have never had a place for political or social overtones. The singer himself believed that the main purpose of his work is to please people. In fact, Joe's musical compositions have had a huge impact on the public. After the release of his song "Le Petit Pain Au Chocolat", everyone rushed to the bakeries, and sales of chocolate baked goods increased several times.

Inborn humility and lack of confidence in success led to the fact that he became incredibly meticulous in trying to bring what he started to perfection. The producers recalled how hard it was to work with Dassin. They even called the singer "a brilliant bore."

Joe Dassin did his best on stage. After each concert, regardless of the scale of the performance, he invariably lost up to two kilograms.

The striving for perfection played a cruel joke on the singer. In his youth, Joe was diagnosed with a heart murmur, but he decided that the disease would go away by itself. A difficult touring schedule and problems in his personal life led to the fact that on August 22, 1980, the singer had a heart attack. At that time he was only 41 years old.

One of the most famous songs by Joe Dassin - incendiary hit "Taka, takata".