Never heard of Elvis.
If you had asked me to name a French celebrity before I moved to France, then Gérard Depardieu or Vanessa Paradis are perhaps the only two, excluding politicians, I could have named. Certainly not Johnny Hallyday - because I'd never heard of him. This is the man who is billed as the French equivalent of Elvis - he's been rocking the French charts for over forty years. His first album was released in 1960, his forty-fourth in 2005, and he's still going strong. What's more - Johnny is still as popular now as he was forty years ago; and his influence on French culture is such that when he recently vocalised his support for right-wing politician and presidential candidate - Nicolas Sarkozy - it made headline news. In short - this man is bigger than Elvis.So how is it possible to have never heard of him? Quite simply: because he generally sings in French; and unfortunately the only way for a French artist to get any airtime in the UK is either to sing in English or to enter [...]