François Hadji-Lazaro

François Hadji-Lazaro was a leading figure in French rock in the 1980s, and was behind the bands Pigalle, Les Garçons Bouchers and Los Carayos. Born in Paris on June 22, 1956, he began playing folk with Pénélope before meeting Daniel Hennion, with whom he formed the group Pigalle in 1982. By the time the first album came out in 1987, the guitarist and singer, who plays some twenty string instruments, had already set up the Boucherie Productions label and founded another group, Les Garçons Bouchers, with more or less the same musicians. While Pigalle favored songs with a Parisian, retro soul, such as "Dans la salle du bar-tabac de la rue des Martyrs", their biggest hit in 1990, Les Garçons Bouchers celebrated alternative rock born of the punk movement, willingly iconoclastic, and won over a wide audience with their five albums released between 1986 and 1995. A pioneer of self-production in French rock, François Hadji-Lazaro's label includes Mano Negra, Les Tétines Noires, Les Elles, Happy Drivers and Los Carayos, which he formed with Manu Chao and released four albums. In 1996, he launched a solo career with the album François Détexte Topor, set to lyrics by surrealist artist and poet Roland Topor, followed by Et Si Que...? (2002), Contre-Courant (2004) and Aigre-Doux (2006). He then devoted himself to writing songs for children, with three albums published by Milan Jeunesse, and continued to appear in films. After starring in films by Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Zidi, Georges Lautner and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's La Cité des enfants perdus (1995), he appeared in Josée Dayan's TV movie Les Misérables (2000) and in Christophe Gans' feature films Le Pacte des loups (2001), Philippe Haïm's Les Dalton (2004) and Jean-Pierre Mocky's Le Cabanon rose (2016). On February 25, 2023, François Hadji-Lazaro died of septicemia at the age of 66.