Catherine Ferry

Born on July 1, 1953 in Ivry-sur-Seine, Catherine Ferry grew up in the Paris region. An encounter as a young adult accelerated her musical development. In a Parisian bar, she attended a concert by a music group, Présence, then little known to the general public. One of its members, however, was to become a household name in French chanson: Daniel Balavoine. While Balavoine's first album, De Vous À Elle En Passant Par Moi, struggled to get off the ground, Catherine Ferry, who shared her life with Balavoine from 1974 to 1977, reached a wider audience. With the song "1, 2, 3", a pure French variété composed by Tony Rallo and written by Jean-Paul Cara, with Daniel Balavoine on backing vocals, Ferry finished second in the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest. The success of the competition led to extensive tours of Europe and even Japan, and increased Ferry's audience. This high profile encouraged him to pursue his musical career, with a series of 45s for the Barclay label, including a new single, "Mélodie Bleue", composed by Daniel Balavoine, Patrick Dulphy and Bernard Serré. The heady chorus worked, placing the song in the thirteenth Hit-Parade compilation and heralding a debut album, Catherine Ferry, released in 1977. Although the couple broke up, the music never slowed down, and a track, "Tu Es Mon Ennemi", brought them back together again in 1980. She moved to the WEA label, where she produced new singles ("Bonjour Bonjour" and "Grandis Pas"), followed by a second album, Catherine Ferry (1984), mostly composed by Daniel Balavoine and Linda Lecomte. This was to be her last, however, as the sudden death of her ex-partner hit her particularly hard. Although she appeared here and there, as on the track Quelqu'un Quelque Part, started by Balavoine and finished by Jean-Jacques Goldman, Catherine Ferry disappeared from the media airwaves and moved to Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1990. " J'attends", released in 2008, marked a slight comeback, as did the recording of "Petit Jean", unveiled to the public in 2010.