From Mademoiselle Age Tendre, March 1966, No. 17.
*Please note: if you re-use any of my scans on your site or blog, please credit me and link back to this blog.*
Four tracks by pretty yé-yé girl Christine Lebail on Magic Records' Sixties Girls Vol. 1 compilation appear to be all that have surfaced of her recordings. Anyone found more? 'Les Livres d'école' is the standout track, a fun, upbeat song where Christine suggests that if school books talked about love, classrooms would be filled with far more attentive students. The baritone interjections from the 'professor' remind me of Chantal Kelly's 'Notre prof' d'anglais' and Cléo's 'Madame La Terre'.
Just 16 when she recorded this song, Christine had been both a member of a religious choir, and the singer for a rock'n'roll group that played at local dances on weekends. She was discovered after entering a radio contest, and recorded her first EP in 1964. L'an prochain sur la plage, the EP from which the four Sixties Girls tracks were taken, was her second release. (sources: Wikipedia, QueSontsIlsDevenu.Net, Yé-Yé Girls)
It's a shame her cover of Serge Gainsbourg's 'Ces petits riens' (as 'Des petits riens') didn't show up on Mister Melody, this year's 4-CD release of mostly hard-to-find recordings of Gainsbourg-penned tracks.
Buy: Sixties Girls Vol 1 from Magic Records
Links: Pages on Christine @ April Dancer (EP sleeves and discography - page in Japanese), Rétro Jeunesse, Bide et Musique, La Papier à Gaumet, Les Livres d'écoles lyrics (Bide et Musique).
And please be sure to visit Yé-Yé Land, a gorgeously designed new site with great features like a transcript of a 1964 Life Magazine article on Sylvie Vartan, Sheila and Françoise Hardy (yep, in English!) and a comprehensive list of female yé-yé singers, with more additions to the site still to come.
Kate