Jacques Duvall • Le cowboy et la call-girl (reissue) Compact Disc

In 2006 Jacques Duvall took a train to Liège. Benjamin Schoos, head of the Freaksville label had just invited him to make a come back to his native Belgium and to the music of his youth. 24 hours later Duvall finished recording an album of nine songs turned down by various french pop singers because the lyrics were a little too edgy. Backed by Phantom, a belgian garage band driven by Schoos, the old dandy’s voice never sounded more disillusioned and cynical. Schoos’ guitar work had the urgency and parcimony of an early Velvet Lou Reed. Duvall was home again. Two years later Duvall and Schoos are back in the studio. The unlikely pair has written ten new songs, ranging from sordid doo wop to demented psychobilly or sweaty white trash funk. Like a gallic Andre Williams, Jacques Duvall is crooning tales of doomed love and hidden demons. Schoos’ compositions are sonic equivalents to tragicomic italian giallo movies from the seventies. These two gentlemen have peculiar tastes indeed. Jacques Duvall is not a mainstream star. But aficionados follow him since he began writing songs in the late seventies. His first protégée was Marie France, a parisian underground figure, for whom he wrote a handful of singles. His second égérie was Lio, the witty brunette who took Duvall’s “Banana Split” to the top of all european charts in 1979. Duvall was then sollicited by french crooner Alain Chamfort to succeed Serge Gainsbourg as his lyricist. Together they scored a few hits. Others asked him to deliver his twisted minded chansonnettes: Etienne Daho, Jane Birkin, Henri Salvador, Coralie Clément, Dani, Bijou, Marc Lavoine. His talents seem to be appreciated outside of the french market and he also wrote for Sparks, The Runaways, Lisa Ekdahl. Now with this album the man stands out for himself. With his singing skeleton looks (shaved skull, bony figure), the radical production of Benjamin Schoos and the no-bullshit mixing skills of Kramer (Butthole Surfers, Daniel Johnston…), Jacques Duvall will convince you that belgian rock’n’roll didn’t start with Deus.