David McNeil

Songwriter David McNeil has put his pen to the service of others, alongside a career focused on folk and country. American by birth, the natural son of painter Marc Chagall and his governess Virginia McNeil was born in New York on June 22, 1946, and grew up in France between his parents. Sent to boarding school, he then lived in Brussels and London, becoming a British citizen in 1966. In 1968, David McNeil recorded two singles in English before meeting Pierre Barouh, who signed him to his Saravah label. Attached to the French language, he wrote the lyrics for his first album, composed in 1973 with Jack Treese and featuring the song "Hollywood", covered by Yves Montand, Julien Clerc and Renaud. In addition to two other albums, he proved himself, with his chiselled writing, a songwriter appreciated by many artists, including Alain Souchon, Laurent Voulzy, Sacha Distel, Sylvie Vartan and Julien Clerc, for whom he wrote the hit "Melissa". Actor in a number of confidential films, he directed Overdrive (1970), the short film What Happened to Eva Braun? (1971) and wrote the music for several others, including the theme for Blue Jeans in 1977. In 1978, he changed labels to RCA with three albums, including Roule Baba Cool (1979) and Rucksack-Alpenstock (1980), and began writing children's books, then novels, several of which were published by Gallimard, winning the Prix Le Vaudeville for Tangage et roulis (2006). His musical career continued on the Virgin label with the album Seul Dans Ton Coin (1991) and a live recording, Olympia 97 (1998), where he was joined by Maxime Le Forestier, Robert Charlebois, Renaud, Alain Souchon and Julien Clerc. Stricken with esophageal cancer, David McNeil scaled back his musical activities, composing just one more album, Un Lézard en Septembre (2014), produced with the Souchon family and featuring Michel Jonasz, Françoise Hardy and Matthieu Chedid. The compilations Les Années Saravah (1994) and Les Années RCA - Intégrale 1978-1982 (1995) retrace his career.