1980-1989
1980 : Nationwide tour and show at the Palace in Paris
At the beginning of 1980, Alain Chamfort went back to Los Angeles in order to audition musicians for his next show : Napoléon Brock (musician of Franck Zappa), Steve Martson (accompanist of the Bee Gees), Mark Morgan and Philip Madayag. He also chose two French musicians.
On stage, there were 14 synthesizers ! Alain, always an innovator, used a mini-microphone which could be fastened on the head (quite unusual in those days !) and played a new instrument : the guitar-keyboard !
The nationwide tour started on April 20th, 1980 in Nice. Then Alain took his album on to the stage of the Palace in Paris on May 6th
In July, Alain Chamfort and Gérard Louvin went to Argentina,
Brazil and Chile to promote "Manureva" "
In 1980 also, Alain's two twin sons Gary and Lucas were born on November 3rd.
1981 : 5th album "Amour année zero".
For his next album, Chamfort composed his music on his own and decided to work with the arranger Wally Badarou who was a great magician with synthesizers. At the beginning of 1981, Alain with Lio a young female singer, and Gainsbourg with his girlfriend Bambou, left for Los Angeles and stayed together with Gérard Louvin and Wally Badarou in a large house in Beverly Hills.
The collaboration with Gainsbourg on the lyrics was heading for a clash, Alain refused "easy" options. Gainsbourg even took back some lyrics he was writing for Alain in order to give them to Catherine Deneuve and suddenly left Los Angeles. Alain, in the States and Serge, in Paris would finish the last songs by phone ! Thanks to Lio, it was her songwriter, Eric Hagen-Dierks who wrote the last missing text : it would be "Paradis".
During this time, Alain recorded his album at the "Sound Connection Studio" in Los Angeles with the best Californian musicians.
The album "
In September, Chamfort went to Italy and Spain in order to promote the single "
1982 :"Chasseur d'ivoire"
In March 82, the single "
For a TV show, Alain Chamfort sponsored Etienne Daho who would become and still is a very popular singer in France. For two years (until the beginning of 1984), Alain Chamfort used to propose Etienne Daho for radio and TV programs quite often.
In those days, Alain also composed much music for advertisements.
The Brazilian singer Sergio Mendes took up and adapted the
song "
In this same year 1982, Alain broke up with his manager Gérard Louvin.
1983 : 6th album "Secrets glacés"
For his next album, Alain chose Philippe Bourgoin to write the lyrics. He decided to record this album in London in the studio of John Kongos because it was fitted with a fairlight : it was a revolutionary instrument, half-computer half-synthesizer with a powerful micro-processor. Besides Alain Chamfort was one of the very first French artists to use fairlights.
Then Alain went to Japan to make several photos for his album with the Japanese photographer, Fujii Hideki and the Geisha model, Abe Ritsuko. This new album called "SECRETS GLACES" was released in May 1983 and included 10 songs : "Cap aux Antilles", "La licorne appareille", "7 Amazones", "Bons baisers d'ici", "Sorcier", "L'infidèle", "Volatile", "Les jours de moisson", " Passif imparfait", "Rendez-vous".
Alain worked out a small choreography with some dancers to illustrate the song " Bons baisers d'ici" on TV shows
In July and August, Alain Chamfort went back to London with Lio, to produce the recording of the 2sd album of Lio which was released in Autumn 1983. It included 10 songs, two of them "Grenade" and "La reine des pommes" were composed by Alain Chamfort.
In the same year, the group The Manhattan Transfer took up the pilot-song by Alain "Malaise in Malaisie" (keeping the French title) on their album "Bodies and soul".
1984: Show at the Olympia in Paris
Alain set about preparing his next show at l'Olympia. It would be split into two themes : the city and urban life, travel and exoticism. Alain wanted to propose an original presentation of his songs, featuring 5 female dancers and 3 male dancers on the stage. Once more Alain used the fairlight (yet again he was one of the first French singers to use such a fairlight on stage).
At l'Olympia, in Paris, on June 18th, 1984, Alain had a house full and was a major success : the press noted that "fans, stars, journalists will be stirred by the reference show of the year".
On October 5th, 1984 Alain took part in a special prime-time TV show dedicated to the famous star Isabelle Adjani. This program was called : "Show Isabelle Adjani : Une comedienne qui chante, une chanteuse qui joue" ("An actress who sings, a singer who acts"). In that year, Isabelle Adjani had as an exception released an album as a singer ! The beautiful lyrics of the songs were written by Serge Gainsbourg. The pilot song was "Pull marine" whose video was shot by Luc Besson, a famous film director. This was the opportunity for Alain Chamfort to sing "Bons baisers d'ici" and "Rendez-vous". Among the other guests, there were Madness, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the French group Téléphone and Serge Gainsbourg.
1985 : Lio
Alain acted as an extra in the movie "Elsa, Elsa" by Didier Haudepin with Lio, François Cluzet and Tom Novembre.
In April 1985, he made plans to set up a show together with Lio for the beginning of year 1986, but in the end he gave up this idea. At that time, Chamfort built up his new record publishing company "Rock'n'Rose Music".
1986: 7th album "Tendres fièvres"
From February to July 1986, Alain recorded his new album in Brussels in the "Synsound" studio of Dan Lacksman with Wally Badarou and Marc Moulin. The mixing was done in London.
At the end of May, the single "TRACES DE TOI" (side A) and "LA FIEVRE DANS LE SANG" (side B) was released as a pilot single.
Traces de toi" reached number 29 in the single Top 50 hits. The video for this song was shot in Greece by Costa Kekemenis.
Also in May, Lio's new single was released : "Les brunes comptent pas pour des prunes" produced and created by Alain Chamfort. This song was a big success and reached number 10 in the single Top 50 hits.
At the end of October, the album "TENDRES FIEVRES" was released with the following songs : "Traces de toi", "Le plus grand chapiteau", " L'amour est une bombe" , "J'entends tout", "La fièvre dans le sang", "Revenir avec vous", "Je laisse couler", "Pin-ups", "Déchaîne-moi" (French adaptation of the song "Can't get enough of your love babe" by Barry White).
The single "La fièvre dans le sang" stayed for two months in the chart.
1987 : Show at the Casino de Paris and "Chamfort … tour 87"
Right at the beginning of 1987, Alain Chamfort started to prepare his new show. From 3rd to 10th April, he performed several concerts at the famous Casino de Paris. In the following weeks, the "Alain Chamfort tour 87" performed in several cities. His show was praised by most critics. For the first time, CBS issued his previous albums in the compact-disc version. A compilation album from the years 1977 to 1983 was also released.
At that time, Chamfort composed the song "A caus'des garçons" for the group A caus'des garçons formed by 2 girls Hélène Bérard and Laurence Heller. Chamfort even did vocals for this song which climbed up to number 13 in the chart.
1988 :Double live album :"Doublevie"
In March, a double live album was released, it contained the complete recording of the concert at the Casino de Paris.
Still in March 1988, a book merely called "Alain Chamfort" was published, it was written by Alain Wais, a journalist working for the well-known newspaper "Le Monde".
In Autumn, the second single was released by the girls of A caus'des garçons : "Faire les voyous" – Music by Chamfort.
1989 : A caus'des garçons
Third and last single for the duet A caus'des garçons : "Pas envie d'expliquer" – music by Chamfort – lyrics written by Hélène Bérard and Laurence Heller. In 1989, Alain Chamfort took part in the record "Pour toi Arménie" (for the cause of Armenia) at the request of Charles Aznavour.