A notable performer, the singer Henri Salvador was also a musician of considerable influence. Not only is he credited with introducing the French to rock’n’roll but he also had a hand in inspiring the bossa nova movement in Brazil.
Self-taught, Salvador spent most of his life in Paris where he associated with such musical celebrities as Jacques Brel. On his frequent trips to Brazil he played with Gilberto Gil. He had a high reputation in France, Canada and Latin America, and, active to the end, his later albums Chambre avec vue and R?v?rence earned growing recognition in Britain and the US.
Salvador had a natural stage presence. Playing the cabarets of Montparnasse during his early career and a brief dalliance with comedy had given him a taste for live performance and audiences. His music was always light-hearted, or “fanciful” as he described it, and later in his career he devoted much time to writing music for children’s shows and Disney recordings.
Henri Salvador was born into a middle-class family in Cayenne in French Guyana in 1917. His father was of Spanish origin, his mother Caribbean, both from Guadeloupe. When Salvador was 7, the family migrated to Paris, and there, as a boy, his passion for music was sparked by recordings of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Salvador soon acquired a guitar and taught himself to play.
In 1933, aged 16, he entered the Parisian cabaret scene, his playing heavily influenced by the jazz to which he had been listening. He was spotted by Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy jazz guitarist, who took him on as his accompanist and heavily influenced his style. Salvador would also later play with the jazz violinist Eddie South.
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As the war loomed, Salvador joined the army. Between 1937 and 1941 he served just outside Paris, a posting from where he could continue to take part in the music scene. On crossing over to the Free Zone in 1941 he made an acquaintance that would shape his career: the Brazilian orchestra leader Ray Ventura. He took on Salvador and arranged for them to leave Vichy France for Brazil and Latin America where they toured, exposing Salvador to music other than jazz.
In 1946 Salvador, having already made something of a name for himself, returned to Paris. In 1947 he co-starred with Ludmilla Tch?rina and Yves Montand in the operetta Le Chevalier Bayard at the Alhambra, and a couple of years later he performed at the ABC, the temple of the Paris music halls. There he met Jacqueline, who became his first wife and impresario.
His output was prolific in the 1950s - more than 400 songs - as he collaborated with the songwriter Boris Vian and frequently worked with the arranger Quincy Jones. Rock and Roll-Mops is the most enduring product of this period, during which Salvador is credited with introducing France to rock’n’roll. At the same time he and Vian also collaborated on blues numbers, notably Blouse du dentiste, and French Caribbean biguines.
The highpoint of the Fifties was an appearance on the US Ed Sullivan television show. Salvador proved popular with critics in New York, although his tracks never became the cult hits they did in France. One of these, Dans mon île, is credited with inspiring Antonio Carlos Jobim to develop the genre of music later dubbed bossa nova.
A performer of considerable personal charm, Salvador made several television appearances. He also founded a label, Rigolo, in 1964, on which he released numerous hits, including Zorro est arriv? and the playful Juanita Banana.
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He believed that visual accompaniment had a powerful part to play in musical performance and in 1971 he became involved with Disney when he wrote an original song that recounted the plot of the cartoon film The Aristocats. Over the next five years he recorded five more children’s albums that relied heavily on Disney films, in particular tackling Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Robin Hood and Pinocchio; he also made recordings of La Fontaine’s fables.
After the death of his wife in 1976, Salvador returned to adult music, issuing two albums - Salvador 77 and Les Canotiers - over the next two years and recording a tribute to Boris Vian, who had died prematurely in 1959.
During the 1980s Salvador slowed his pace, concentrating more on TV performances and his return to the concert stage in 1982. In the subsequent years he returned to his roots in jazz and blues, appearing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1994 he signed a deal with Sony and travelled to New York to record the jazzy Monsieur Henri album; the live Casino de Paris followed a year later.
Salvador made a recording comeback in 2001 with the album Chambre avec vue. It sold more than two million copies and was later dubbed a “masterpiece” by The Times. Featuring a number of promising young songwriters, a duet with Françoise Hardy and some of Salvador’s own recent material, it also won him Best Male Artist and Album of the Year awards at the Victoires de la Musique. The success of the Buena Vista Social Club had suddenly turned a number of older musicians into hot commodities, and in 2002 Blue Note reissued Salvador’s album under its English title, Room with a View.
In 2006 he released R?v?rence, which was also well received. He continued to give public appearances, including one on British television in Later with Jools Holland in May last year. He published his memoirs, Attention ma vie, in 1994.
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In 1996 Salvador received a special lifetime achievement award at the Victoires de la Musique Awards, where he performed a duet with Ray Charles. He was also awarded the Brazilian Order of Cultural Merit for his influence on Brazilian culture, and was a commander of the L?gion d’honneur and of the National Order of Merit.
Salvador is survived by his fourth wife, Catherine Costa.
Henri Salvador, singer, was born on July 18, 1917. He died on February 13, 2008, aged 90