My SIL teaches French. She watched the French TV news broadcasts on the DC area's MHz TV station when she could. They managed to work in news about Johnny Hallyday all the time. As you said, outside French-speaking areas, he was practically unknown.
Johnny Hallyday
Jean-Philippe Léo Smet (15 June 1943 – 6 December 2017), better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday (French: [dʒɔ.ni a.li.dɛ (j)]), was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor. In a career spanning 57 years, Hallyday completed 181 tours, had 18 platinum albums, and sold more than 110 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.
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Career
Influenced by Elvis Presley and the 1950s rock n' roll revolution, Hallyday became known for singing rock 'n' roll in French. His debut single, "Laisse les filles" was released on the Vogue label in March 1960. His first album, Hello Johnny, was released in 1960. In 1961 his cover of "Let's Twist Again" sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. It topped almost every European chart, although the track did not appear in the UK Singles Chart. He appeared on the American The Ed Sullivan Show with American singing star Connie Francis in a show that was taped at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. He also staged many appearances in the Paris Olympia under the management of Bruno Coquatrix.
For their first concert, The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for Johnny Hallyday in Nancy on 14 October 1966. Film footage, also from October 1966, exists of Hallyday partying with Hendrix, his manager Chas Chandler and others. He also socialised with Keith Richards and Bob Dylan.
At the end of the 1960s, Hallyday made a string of albums with Mick Jones and Tommy Brown as musical directors, and Big Jim Sullivan, Bobby Graham and Jimmy Page as session musicians. These are Jeune homme, Rivière... Ouvre ton lit (aka Je suis né dans la rue) and Vie. On Je suis né dans la rue, Hallyday also hired both Peter Frampton and the Small Faces. Amongst their contributions are the songs "Amen (Bang Bang)", "Reclamation (News Report)", and "Regarde pour moi (What You Will)", which are variations of Small Faces and Humble Pie (Frampton's band) songs—tracks and they all play on the album. Often forgotten is Hallyday's non-LP single and EP track "Que je t'aime" from the same sessions. By 1969 alone, his record sales exceeded twelve million.
One of Hallyday's later concerts, 100% Johnny: Live à la tour Eiffel in 2000, attracted an audience of 500,000 and 9.5 million television viewers (the show was broadcast live on French TV). In December 2005, Hallyday had his third number-one single in France, "Mon plus beau Noël" (after "Tous ensemble" and "Marie" ), dedicated to his adopted daughter Jade. Shortly before announcing his retirement from touring in 2007, he released a blues-flavored album, Le Cœur d'un homme. In addition to the lead single "Always", Le Cœur d'un homme features "T'aimer si mal", a duet with blues musician Taj Mahal and "I Am the Blues", an English-language song (uncharacteristically for Hallyday) written by U2's lead singer Bono. His next album, Ça ne finira jamais, released in 2008, another No. 1 on the French album chart, and its lead single, "Ça n'finira jamais", also reached No. 1. Hallyday's last album was Tour 66: Stade de France 2009, a live set recorded at Stade de France during his farewell tour.
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