Serge GAINSBOURG - Signed photo. “woe to the beardless” – 1959.

Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)

Autograph card signed to his pianist friend Lucien Merer.

“woe to the beardless”

Paris. 1959.

Promotional photographic card for Philips (photo by Jacques Aubert) showing Gainsbourg in bust for “Du chant à la une!” …”

The proof bears this wonderful and sarcastic signed autograph inscription in black ink:

woe to the beardless

serge

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In October 1958, shortly after Serge Gainsbourg's debut at Milord l'Arsouille, the Jacques Brothers performed for the first time on stage, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, "Le Poinçonneur des Lilas", a song which had been written by Gainsbourg , recorded by him in June 1958 and published in his first album, “Du chant à la une!” …” in September 1958.

A year later, in order to promote Gainsbourg's recordings and his own singing tour at the Théâtre de l'Étoile (October 1959), Philips organized a session with the in-house photographer, Jacques Aubert: the full-length portrait from which the This promotional card appears, on a double page, in the program of this event.

The sarcastic expression “woe to the beardless” has a tasty aspect in hindsight when we know what will happen to the artist's three-night beard. It is very likely that Gainsbourg wanted to humorously contradict the song “Honneur aux barbus!” », written by Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche for the Quatre Barbus.

This photograph comes from the archives of his friend and accomplice Lucien Merer (1927-2019), pianist, composer and arranger who accompanied him from his first steps. Merer collaborated with several other big names on the musical scene: Boby Lapointe, Jean Ferrat, Cora Vaucaire, Édith Piaf, Léo Ferré and Charles Aznavour, sometimes assisting them during their debuts or their singing tours in cabarets and concert halls. Parisians (Jacob's Ladder, Milord l'Arsouille, Bobino, etc.).

Document of the greatest rarity.