Who is Michel Berger, featured in today's Google doodle?
The French singer-songwriter, popular in the 70s and 80s, was born to Jewish parents.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
If you're wondering who the man singing in Google's doodle today is, wonder no more: his name is Michel Berger, and he was a staple of France's pop music scene in the 70s and 80s.Born Michel Jean Hamburger in the French town of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1947 to Jewish parents, Berger first made a name for himself with the song Salut les copains (Hi buddies) in the 1960s. Its success led to his becoming a record producer and songwriter for EMI, and over the next few years he penned a number of hits for other artists, including Les girafes for André Bourvil.His first album, Le coeur brisé (the broken heart) came in 1973, and was swiftly followed in the next three years with three more: Chansons pour une fan (Songs for a fan), Que l'amour est bizarre (That love is weird), and Mon piano danse (My piano dances).As you may have gathered from the doodle, the piano was Berger's instrument of choice. It was a talent which ran in the family - his mother, Annette Haas-Hamburger, was a concert pianist and member of the Académie française, and Berger was trained in classical piano from a young age. The musical mantle is one that his son Raphael has taken on, as he works as a producer and musical soundtrack supervisor.In addition to his 13 studio albums and three live albums, Berger was active in the other performing arts, scoring several films including Mektoub, a 1970 film by Algerian Director Ali Ghalem, and Philippe Labro's 1984 film Rive droite, rive gauche (right shore, left shore).Berger died of a heart attack while playing tennis in August 1992, just weeks after the release of an album of duets with his wife, France Gall. He was just 44 at the time. He would have been 72 today.
