Monique Serf
| Barbara | |
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Barbara in 1968
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Monique Andrée Serf |
| Born |
June 9, 1930 Paris |
| Died | November 24, 1997 (aged 67) Neuilly-sur-Seine |
| Genres | Chanson, French pop |
| Occupation(s) | French singer-songwriter and actress |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1958–1996 |
| Labels | Universal Music Group |
Monique Andrée Serf (June 9, 1930 – November 24, 1997), whose stage name was Barbara, was a French singer. She took her stage name from her grandmother, Varvara Brodsky, a native of Odesa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Her song "L'Aigle noir" sold twenty four thousand in twelve hours.
Born in Paris to a Jewish family, Barbara was ten years old when she had to go into hiding during the German occupation of France in World War II. After the war ended, a neighborhood professor of music heard her sing and took an interest in helping her develop her talents. She was given vocal lessons and taught to play the piano, and eventually she enrolled at the Ecole Supérieure de Musique. Money was a problem and she gave up her musical studies to sing at "La Fontaine des Quatre Saisons," a popular cabaret in Paris.
She was deeply scarred by the war and her family's plight. The feelings of emptiness experienced during childhood showed in her songs, particularly "Mon Enfance". She said in her uncompleted autobiography, Il était un piano noir (assembled from notes found after her death), that her father sexually abused her when she was ten and she hated him for that. He later abandoned the family.
A tall person, Barbara dressed in black as she sang melancholy songs of lost love. From 1950 to 1952, after her father's desertion of her family, she lived in Brussels, where she became part of an active artistic community. Her painter and writer friends took over an old house, converting it into workshops and a concert hall with a piano where she performed the songs of Édith Piaf, Juliette Gréco and Germaine Montéro. However, her career evolved slowly and she struggled constantly to eke out a living.
Returning to Paris, she met Jacques Brel and became a lifelong friend, singing many of his songs. Later she met Georges Brassens, whose songs she began to use in her act and to record on her first album. In the 1950s, she sang at some of the smaller clubs and began building a fan base, particularly with the young students from the Latin Quarter. In 1957, she went back to Brussels to record her first single, but it was not until 1961 that she got a real break when she sang at the Bobino Music-Hall in Montparnasse. Dressed in a long black robe, she gave a haunting performance, but the Parisian critics said she lacked naturalness and was stiff and formal in her presentation. She continued to perform at small clubs, and two years later at the Théâtre des Capucines she succeeded with the audience and critics alike, singing new material she had written herself. From that point on, her career blossomed and she signed a major recording contract in 1964 with Philips Records.
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