By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Henri Salvador, 90, one of France's most enduring and multi-talented entertainers, whose musical range spanned pre-war chansons and whispery bossa nova to children's favorites and "Le blues du dentiste," his gimmicky 1950s tune that helped introduce the nation to rock-and-roll, died Feb. 13 at his home in Paris of an aneurysm.
During a 70-year career, Mr. Salvador attained popularity as a musician, singer, songwriter, dancer, pantomime artist and television personality.
Although he appeared in several movies -- including early musical shorts in blackface -- he said his mixed racial heritage was a barrier to becoming a film star. Mr. Salvador was a native of French Guiana, in South America, and his parents were of Spanish and indigenous Caribbean descent.
He grew up in Paris and began his career as a guitarist in clubs and orchestras in the 1930s. He exposed French audiences to bossa nova and early rock sounds after tours in South America in the 1940s and the United States in the 1950s.
His venture in rock was done for humor as much as anything. He formed the Original Rock and Roll Boys with songwriter Boris Vian and composer-pianist Michel Legrand and introduced hit songs such as "Le Blues du Dentiste" and "Rock and Roll Mops." The trio adopted pseudonyms -- Mr. Salvador was Henry Cording, Vian was Vernon Sullivan and Legrand was Big Mac.
Mr. Salvador's whimsical touch was further underscored with such 1960s releases as the novelty songs "Juanita Banana" and "Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir" (a version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"). There were also many television appearances that highlighted the juxtaposition between Mr. Salvador's graceful physique and his long face, excitable personality and huge laugh.
He made several records in the 1970s that accented his long-standing appeal to children, including one based on the Disney film "The Aristocats," which earned him a second Grand Prix du Disque, the French equivalent of a Grammy Award. Other albums followed paying homage to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Robin Hood" and "Pinocchio."
He later said he "got sick of writing not-so-intellectual songs" and by the early 1980s reenergized his career with a series of new recordings and high-profile live appearances, including a concert with the celebrated French jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani.
Mr. Salvador's 2000 album "Chambre Avec Vue" -- released in the U.S. two years later as "Room With a View" -- showcased his skillful interpretations of bossa nova. Some writers credited the album's appeal to a renewed interest in older musicians such as Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club.
Entertainment Weekly simply called the album "nifty for necking."
Henri Gabriel Salvador was born July 18, 1917, in Cayenne, French Guiana, where his father was a tax collector. He was drawn to music at 12 after a cousin played American jazz records of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
He spent 100 francs on a guitar and practiced by mimicking the jazz virtuoso Django Reinhardt. He was 17 when he first auditioned professionally, and the bandleader was dazzled.
"He asked me, 'Where did you come from?' and I told him, 'From my room,' " Mr. Salvador said.
After a brief Army stint, he won a position in Ray Ventura's popular band Les Coll¿giens de Paris in 1942 as a guitarist, singer and comedian -- he was specifically asked to impersonate crooners Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra as well as Popeye.
Les Coll¿giens went on a three-year tour of South America to escape the Vichy regime that ruled after the fall of France, during which time Mr. Salvador picked up composition skills from a bandmate.
He returned to Paris in 1945 and freelanced actively on stage and records. He had many pop hits as a singer and songwriter, including "Parce Que ¿a Me Donne du Courage" and "Le Portrait de Tante Caroline."
In 1951, he met Vian, an author, jazz musician and composer of protest music, and they bonded over a love of jokes and imitations.
Mr. Salvador once said they spent the next eight years in a fruitful working relationship that led to hundreds of songs in styles ranging from blues to beguines to the politically inspired, including "Marche Arri¿re" (Backward March) and "Faut Rigoler" ("One Has to Laugh").
Vian died of a heart condition in 1959. The next year, Mr. Salvador and his second wife, Jacqueline Garabedian, formed the recording label Disques Salvador. She also urged him to work in television specials, which made him more of a household presence. She died in 1976.
In recent years, Mr. Salvador dueted with Brazilian entertainers such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. In 2004, he received the French Legion of Honor.
He told a reporter he worried little of his musical legacy, adding: "When we disappear, the world still keeps turning. We are nothing."
