René Joly (Accordeon)
1 Sq. d’Amiens, 75020 Paris, France

René Joly started playing the accordion with Raymond Gazave, creator of the Conservatoire d’accordéon de Paris. With Robert Deligny and Camille Quinzin he formed the Trio Musette de Paris, releasing many records in the 1950s and 60s. During his military service in Morocco he worked in the Radio Maroc orchestra where he met Martial Solal, and later worked as an arranger for Yvette Horner and Émile Prud’homme. As an accordionist, you can hear him in the numerous film scores composed and conducted by Georges Delerue.

Jean Paulhac (poète)
209 Bd Davout, 75020 Paris, France

Jean Paulhac started his working life as a PE teacher before publishing his first novel Le Chemin de Damas in 1952. A year later he would serialise his sophomore novel, Nous n’avons pas demandé à vivre, in Témoignage chrétien, the Christian-inspired newspaper published during the German Occupation by the French Interior Resistance movement. He went on to publish more than 10 novels in his own name and in his pseudonym Jean Dorcino. He wrote around twenty radio plays (performed by François Perrier on Europe 1), Le commissaire mène l’enquête, and Un bruit de gêpes, a fantastic novel published by Denoël in 1957, which became a cult book and was republished in 2007 by Cavalier Vert. Paulhac began studying psychology in the 1970s and opened a private practice in Paris.

Luis Machaco (CHANTEURS ET CHANTEUSES)
158 Bd Davout, 75020 Paris, France

Luis Machaco was one of the many popular bandleaders on the Parisian Tango scene of the 1950s and 60s. A favourite on the radio airwaves of France, he also released a number of EPs, mostly on the Disques Festival label. An allrounder for any dance situation his repertoire included all the mid century favourites: Calypso, Tango, Baião, Rumba, Bolero. As a talented composer his songs were recorded by artists such as Pépé Alvarido, Rudy Hirigoyen and Rico Truxillo as well by eager amateurs, who bought one of the many song sheets published in his name.

Christian Arabian (CHANTEURS ET CHANTEUSES)
8 Rue Louis Ganne, 75020 Paris, France

Singer Christian Arabian was hot property in the 1960s, not because of his short lived solo career but for his song-writing abilities. He released a handful of EPs in his own right between 1965-1967, and one album, all on the Disques Festival label. It is his skill as a songwriter that has lived on in the hearts of the French public. Arabian wrote songs for a whole bevy of popular Chanson beauties, including Pia Colombo, Christine Delaroche, Isabelle Aubret, Caterina Valent, and perhaps the queen of them all, Brigitte Bardot. Of course he worked with many of their male counterparts during the 1960s and 70s, especially Gérard Lenorman and Henri Seroka. He even adapted Cat Stevens for Alain Bashung’s rare 1971 gem Du Feu Dans Les Veines.

Jacques Deschamps (COMÉDIENS)
6 Rue Joseph Python, 75020 Paris, France

Although actor Jacques Deschamps had a modest career in film, TV and theatre he is considered one of the titans of the dubbing suite in France. His voice will be forever associated with Hollywood’s biggest stars, and in some of the most iconic movies of the 20th Century. Deschamps was the voice of Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars, And for a few dollars more, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hang Them High), Peter Boyle (Taxi Driver, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and he even dubbed the voice of Richard Nixon in Good Morning, Vietnam. In total he worked on approximately 400 films, including animated titles for Disney, such as The Little Mermaid.