1. Alain Bashung has had an influence on many later French artists, and is the most awarded artist in the Victoires de la Musique history with 12 victories obtained throughout his career.
17 Facts About Alain Bashung
1. 2.
Alain Bashung died at 61 after a two-year fight with lung cancer.
3.
Alain Bashung Baschung was the son of a Breton mother working in a rubber factory and an Algerian father, whom he never knew.
4.
Alain Bashung's mother remarried, and at the age of one, Bashung was sent to Wingersheim, near Strasbourg to live with his stepfather's parents.
5.
Alain Bashung spent his childhood in the countryside, in a rather conservative environment, alongside a grandmother who did not speak French.
6.
Alain Bashung discovered music during his childhood, notably Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, and began to practice with a Rosebud harmonica offered to him when he was five.
7.
Alain Bashung was involved in basketball and cycling, and sang in the church choir in Wingersheim.
8.
Alain Bashung came back to Paris in 1959, where he discovered the great chanson artists, and then rock artists such as Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley.
9.
Alain Bashung later formed a band with musicians met in Royan, and then began to tour in restaurants, hotels and US military bases.
10.
Alain Bashung then met sound engineer Andy Scott and lyricist Boris Bergman.
11.
In 1982, Alain Bashung released an album called Play blessures, written by Serge Gainsbourg.
12.
Alain Bashung was involved in Etienne Daho's Daho Show, covering "I Can't Escape from You" as a duet with Daho.
13.
Alain Bashung rerecorded Serge Gainsbourg's classic album, L'Homme a tete de chou, for a show.
14.
On 1 January 2009, Alain Bashung was made Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur.
15.
Alain Bashung died in Paris on 14 March 2009 from lung cancer at the age of 61 at the Hopital Saint-Joseph in Paris.
16.
Alain Bashung can be heard singing La nuit je mens in the closing scenes of the final episode of the French television series Les Bleus: premiers pas dans la police.
17.
Alain Bashung, who had cancer, had to postpone several dates of his last tour.