The French singer-songwriter Laurent Voulzy, the singer of “Nuits sans Kim Wilde”, tells himself for the first time by publishing his “memoirs”, from his youth in a foster family to the exceptional complicity with Alain Souchon through his attraction to spirituality.
“Those who know me know how modest I am”: the first sentence of “Hidden Behind”, published Thursday by Cherche Midi, sets the tone of this autobiography that the 77-year-old singer wrote with his partner Isaure Le Faou.
After a tormented youth, far from his father living in Guadeloupe, Laurent Voulzy quickly launched into music and outlined in the 1970s and 1980s, with Alain Souchon and others like Louis Chedid, the outlines of a revival of French song.
Long inseparable from Alain Souchon, he experienced his first success in 1977 with “Rockollection” (one million records sold). He then accumulated hits, always sung in France and beyond: “Belem” (2017), a tribute to Brazil, “Le Soleil donne” or even “Les Nuits sans Kim Wilde” with the British pop singer of whom he is a fan.
The fruit of multiple influences: pop, rock, bossa nova, samba, beguine, classical… “My musical universe ranges from Gregorian chant to techno, from Brazil to England,” explained the artist from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
“I was immensely lucky to have crossed paths” with Alain Souchon, whose “genius” was “to understand me so well, perhaps better than myself,” he writes about his accomplice of 50 years.
Laurent Voulzy, often presented as a “dreamer”, also details his taste for spirituality, which pushed him to play in cathedrals and to release an album of sacred music (“Lys and Love”).
This father of four boys admits to not having been “a perfect father”, particularly because of a troubled love life.
“I have always tried to see the bright side of things, life delights me when it is intense. Looking at the moon and the ocean, dreaming transports me. Love too, I am a lover of life and love,” he admits.
The singer also recounts his fight against prostate cancer detected in 2016. He said nothing to his family and fought against the disease in England. A fight from which he emerged victorious.
