Biography
Isabelle Aubret is a French singer. She was born in Lille. She began her career as a singer by singing in small competitions and in an orchestra, but in 1960 she won a singing contest in the Olympia in Paris. After this, she joined a cabaret group. In 1961, she became third in the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Le Gars de n’importe où”. It became her first record and she gained a prize with it at the Festival d’Enghien.
She represented France in the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest. Her song, “Un premier amour”, ended up as the winning song of the 1962 contest in Luxembourg. In the same year, she met Jean Ferrat, who wrote the song “Deux enfants au soleil”. She opened for him on his tour. Jean Ferrat wrote several successful songs for Isabelle Aubret. In 1963, she shared the stage of the ABC with Sacha Distel and was the opening act for Jacques Brel at the Olympia. Brel offered her songs and she worked together with Salvatore Adamo. In 1965, she performed the credits of the hit series “Les Aventures de Saturnin”.
In 1968, Isabelle Aubret represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest again, now with “La source”. In 1969, she changed record company and released the christmas song ” Savez-vous ce qu’il faut au sapin de Noël ?”. One year later, she took part in the national Eurovision Selection, together with Daniel Beretta. They sang the song “Olivier, Olivia”.
She went on tour through Canada. Algeria and Poland. In 1976, she released a new album, participated in the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest and represented France in the World Popular Song Contest in Tokyo. Four years later, she was voted Best Singer Of the World by the Japanese audience.
After an accident that took her a long time to recover, she came back with a new Eurovision attempt in 1983. The song “France, France” became third. In 1989, she won a prize at a festival in Berlin for the album she released that year. She went back to Olympia in 1990. n 1992, she received the Legion of Honor from the hands of President François Mitterrand.
During her career, she kept on performing and releasing albums. At 3 october 2016 she gave her last concert in the Olympia as a goodbye to her French audience.
