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Johnny Hallyday isn't a name that's immediately recognizable to most people from English speaking countries, but in France the man is a mega-star, boasting a musical career as huge as Elvis or The Beatles. This reissued album from 1969, alternately known as Johnny Hallyday or Riviere...Ouvre Ton Lit, is sung entirely in French, but it should still strike a nerve with fans of late 1960's heavy blues-rock acts like Cream, Jeff Beck, and Zeppelin. The people who will get the biggest kick from this album, however, would likely be Small Faces fans, as it captures the band's last session before splitting. Not only did the group serve as Halladay's backing band for some of the songs (and allow Hallyday to more or less appropriate Steve Marriott's vocal style), but they also donated three Marriott/Lane originals for the album - a re-working of their classic "That Man" re-titled "Amen", and two songs "Reclamation" and "Regarde Pour Moi", which they wouldn't record until they were part of Humble Pie. Oddly enough one of the other main musical/songwriting contributors was Mick Jones who would later strike it big with Foreigner. Hallyday himself has expressed his distaste for the album, calling it his worst ever in is autobiography, but once you get past the language barrier (and the ocassional over-bearing vocal performance) the album actually holds up better than most other albums from the era. Definitely worth checking out.
DAVID MANSDORF
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