When Thierry Chassagne, the boss of Warner France talks about Johnny, it is with admiration palpable. He was at the helm of the disc posthumous My Country it is the love . Tremendous success, the album has sold out for the moment to 1,200,000 copies. Before the death of the rocker, in December 2017, Thierry Chassagne had a large-scale project for Johnny Hallyday, he has revealed to the Sunday Newspaper this 9 December.
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«Johnny was obsessed with death. He was very worried at the idea of not seeing them grow up their little girls»
«We had a project of duets international, type crooner in the Sinatra, explains the influential boss. I had talked to David Foster but this was ultimately never saw the light of day.» The american David Foster, producer including of Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, was at the head of the label Verve Records.
«We had a project inspired by Hail! Hail! Rock’n’roll , the movie with Keith Richards and Chuck Berry, continues Thierry Chassagne. My idea was to make a rock album in English with stars such as Keith, Ron Wood [guitar of Rolling stone ], Jack White or the musicians of the Black Keys, a band that he loved». In the album Hail! Hail! Rock’n’roll taken from the documentary of the same name, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton surround to the guitar Chuck Berry. A tribute to the rock world to one of the pioneers of the genre, which celebrated its sixty years.
Obviously, Johnny Hallyday does désavouait not its cadets: The White Stripes , of which Jack White was the guitarist, and the Black Keys were both founded in the 2000s.
«Johnny was obsessed by death,»
«Johnny was obsessed with death. We’ve talked about it many times these last few years, » says Thierry Chassagne. He was very worried at the idea of not seeing them grow up their little girls.» In 2004 and 2008, Johnny Hallyday adopts with his wife Laeticia Hallyday are two girls of vietnamese origin: the Jade Smet and Joy Smet. They had, on the death of their father, 13 and 9 years old.
Thierry Chassagne, after much discussion, managed to become the producer of Johnny to Warner in 2006. If he is forced to keep quiet about the amount of the transaction, it evokes all the same «a very big contract, much like Neymar when he comes to the YANKEES.»
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Thierry Chassagne is not about to forget this «artist outside the norm» that was Johnny Hallyday. «When he died, I had the feeling of losing a piece of my life,» confesses the producer.
