Jean Ferrat

Jean Ferrat was a French singer, songwriter, and poet who enjoyed a long if sometimes controversial career with his passionate songs of love and Leftist politics. Ferrat's songs openly dealt with his political concerns; his 1963 single "Nuit et Brouillard" ("Night and Fog") was a meditation on the Holocaust and its consequences, while a number of his other tunes dealt with the struggle of the working class, and he was an outspoken supporter of Fidel Castro, writing a number about him called "Cuba Si." (Ferrat was just as willing to criticize the Soviet Union for its misdeeds, and "Bilan" was a song attacking the failures of the U.S.S.R.) He withdrew from the concert stage in 1973, but published poetry and continued to write songs, periodically releasing new albums throughout the '70s and '80s. ~ Mark Deming