Herbert Pagani

Italian-born author, composer and performer Herbert Pagani was born in Tripoli, Libya, on April 25, 1944. In 1952, his Italian family of Jewish origin was expelled from Libya. After his parents' divorce, he lived between France and Germany and began an artistic career in painting and sculpture, before turning to song. Influenced by the great names of French chanson, he adapted Jacques Brel's "Le Plat pays" ("Lombardia"), Barbara's "Je ne sais pas dire" ("Non mi venite a dire"), Édith Piaf's "Les Amants d'un jour" ("Albergo a ore") and other songs by Léo Ferré, Mouloudji, Françoise Hardy, Claude Nougaro, Antoine and France Gall into Italian. In 1969, the album Amicizia was orchestrated by Stelvio Cipriani, and the same year he sang in Alberto Sordi's film Amore mio aiutami. Hired as a disc jockey at Radio Monte-Carlo, he broadcast songs from his first French-language album, released in 1971, including "La Chanson pour les hommes " and "Concerto pour Venise". The following year, the conceptual double album Megalopolis, arranged by Christian Chevalier, Jean Claudric, Jean-Claude Petit, Jean-Claude Vannier and Ivan Graziani, was a great success, particularly with the track "Chez nous". Awarded the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros, it was brought to the stage as a rock opera at the Théâtre de Chaillot three years later, then at Bobino in 1976. In between, he released the albums Les Années de la Rage and les Heures de l'Amour (1974), with the birthday hit "La Bonne franquette", the soundtrack to the Italian TV film Marco Visconti by Anton Giulio Majano (1975), in which he acts and sings, and Peintures and Pagani à Bobino (1976). After appearances on the French TV shows Discorama (1974) and Le Grand échiquier (1977), Herbert Pagani signed his last single, "Le Grand Pardon", in 1982. He then devoted himself to sculpture and painting, notably large-scale frescoes inspired by Megalopolis, whose show was revived in 1999 at Le Bataclan by Francis Lalanne and Dominique Guillo with his son, Marcos Pagani. Retired to Palm Springs, California (USA), Herbert Pagani died of leukemia on August 16, 1988, at the age of 44.