Francesca Solleville was born in Périgueux on March 2, 1932. The daughter of a
Gascon man and an Italian woman who had fled the Fascist regime, she studied
literature at the Sorbonne and took singing lessons with Marya Freund. In 1960,
she joined the vocal group Les Barclay and began recording for the BAM label. A
member of the rive gauche movement, Francesca Solleville sang texts by Aragon,
Mac Orlan, Ferré, Ferrat and Brassens, and performed in cabarets such as
l'Écluse, la Contrescarpe, la Colombe and le Port du Salut, where her
songwriters and peers came to listen to her, as ...