How many people here have heard of Johnny Hallyday, other than in today's obituaries?

Me. He plagues my life when I'm looking for old records. Everybody who dies in France has at least 37 of his albums and then they circulate endlessly getting gradually tattier.

The only person he was better than was Clo Clo. Like Cliff Richards in a country where nobody ever realised he was shit.

and RIP Christine Keeler

My gerbil is better than Clo Clo. Find a more relevant putdown please.

I'd never heard of him, but an old bloke I know his nephew was Johnny's agent !

Johnny Hallyday wasn't French. His real name was Jan-Filip smets, he was Belgian. That's not to say he wasn't big in France. Jimi Hendrix once opened for him at the Olympia in Paris and was booed off the stage like some scummy support act.

I think I thought I knew him. Couldn’t take his Pernod. Top bloke though probably. He thought joe Le taxi was a flipping crime against the musique industry though probably and that’s probably one of the strangest things I have heard this week if true because my cousins gerbil was a roadie for Peppi le Peu and that and well he knew his croissants from his creme de menthe and he was a rink E dink panther a Rinki e dink panther now he’s the cutest panther..... whoa there hang on Stanley’s gone. Thank fook the fool. Chirrup.

Wasn't he a wild west gunfighter, a mate of Wyatt Earp?

I asked the question as a kind of straw poll. He's probably been the biggest star ever in the whole history of French stars. When French babies are born, they already know about Johnny Hallyday through their genes.
Think of Elton John being about five times more famous and popular than he already is in Britain.
Yet, as most French people suspect (without actually giving a toss), he was practically unknown outside the francosphere.

Not really my cup of tea like. Too shouty.

Never heard of him until yesterday

Think that was his younger cousin Doc.

I didnt even know he was playing.

Certainly heard of Johnny Halliday- he got mentioned quite a lot in NME and Melody Maker in his heyday in the late 60s - I had the impression he was the French equivalent of Cliff Richard.

Turns out though that French music TV was much eclectic than ours; at a time when you could only get on the tele in England if you had hit singles, they had a programme called Bouton Rouge that was filming sessions from bands from the London Underground scene.

Shame about the total ban on smiling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXgvNZdzYNw

Never made the Pools first team like his brother Stephen but no where near as sticky as his kid.

Nice recall Mr F. I'd never heard of it myself. Probably explains how His Royal Johnnyness got his hands on such notable backing musicians.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5650708/ful ... t_ov_st_sm

To be fair, ITV's Ready Steady Go introduced an assortment of unproven artists, like The Animals, Donovan, or even (in Britain at least) a certain Jimmy Hendrix.

But I think British TV's first totally outside-the-box music programme was probably BBC2's Disco 2 in 1970, which despite its title certainly did NOT feature disco music.

I reckon Madjohn heard him play on Gambian local radio back in 1965.

You're CUT!