Singer and songwriter whose name became synonymous with French chanson
To generations of French people who grew up with his songs, Guy Béart, who has died aged 85, was, as Le Figaro described him, the last troubadour. His name became synonymous with the art of “French chanson”, but despite more than 200 songs and 23 albums he never gained the recognition many felt he deserved.
Overshadowed by his predecessors Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens, publicly insulted and ridiculed by his more outrageous contemporary Serge Gainsbourg, Béart had no sooner become famous in France in the late 1950s than his light was eclipsed by the arrival from across the Atlantic of rock’n’roll.
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