France Joli
| France Joli | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | France Joly |
| Born |
February 2, 1963 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Genres | Disco, soul, dance-pop, Hi-NRG |
| Occupation(s) | singer-songwriter, performer |
| Years active | 1979 – present |
| Website | Official Site |
France Joli (born February 2, 1963) is a Canadian singer, best known for the disco classic "Come to Me."
Born France Joly in Montreal, Quebec, Joli grew up in Dorion. Her father was a hardware merchant and her mother was a teacher.
As early as age four, Joli was performing for relatives lip-synching to Barbra Streisand records while handling a skipping rope like a microphone; she had appeared on television by age six. At age 11, Joli left the public school system (her mother tutored her) to concentrate on her performing career appearing regularly in television commercials and talent shows. A mutual acquaintance suggested Joli meet up with musician Tony Green who Joli approached backstage after he'd given a concert, Joli inviting Green to be her record producer. Green didn't take the 13-year-old Joli seriously: he'd recall: "To get rid of her I [told] her to keep in touch." According to one source Joli eventually visited Green's home to sing for him; it's also reported that Green first heard Joli sing from the audience of an "end of school year show" in which she performed in the fall of 1978. Both accounts concur that Green first heard Joli singing along with a Streisand record. Green had written the song "Come to Me" for Joli by the next day.
When the producer Green originally commissioned to record Joli indicated a desire to develop Joli as a Francophone singer, Green himself took over production duties for Joli. The tracks Joli cut with Green were picked up by Prelude and released on April 17, 1979 as the album France Joli: the track "Come to Me" received a boost when Joli performed it as a last-minute replacement for Donna Summer at a concert held on Fire Island on July 7, 1979 before an estimated audience of five thousand.
"Come to Me" began a three-week reign atop the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play on 22 September 1979 and the France Joli album rose to #26. On the Billboard Hot 100 "Come to Me" peaked at #15 a symptom of the increasing disenchantment of pop radio with disco music.
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