MARY ROOS / AMOUR TOUJOURS THE FRENCH SONG COLLECTIO / CD

Bureau B presents a selection of the finest French works from native GermanMary Roos (born Rosemarie Schwab), recorded between 1972 and 1975 --including 18 tracks on CD for this first time. In the early '70s, Mary Roos sang oneFrench song after another, working with composers and lyricists like MichelFugain, George Costa and Pierre Delanoe, under the guidance of top-flightproducers. As one of the key figures in the light/easy listening scene, Mary Rooshad her own section in record shops. The hotelier's daughter from Bingen on theRhine was an ideal aesthetic ambassador for the genre, known as "Jet-Set-Musique" across the border in France -- discreet music with an infectious feel-goodfactor. TV star and music expert Gotz Alsmann once suggested "Mary Roosdeserves a medal as the German Dionne Warwick," and it was a fair commentto make. She is one of the best vocalists that Germany has ever produced, her bigbreakthrough coming in 1970 with the song "Arizona Man," penned by GiorgioMoroder. The album that followed led the manager of The Fifth Dimension toproclaim "she would go down great in America." Mary did indeed go west, butonly as far as the next-door neighbors. While many a French chanteuse washeading to Germany to entertain an audience caught between sentimentality andparty-pop, Mary Roos was heading in the opposite direction: Paris was to becomethe city of her triumphs. Blessed with a perfect ear, nobody could tell she wasn'tFrench: "Each song was written out phonetically for me, I just had to read thecards." To this day, the French swear that Mary Roos sang without a trace of anaccent, as her French sounded impeccable. In the same year, she performed anumber of sell-out shows at the mecca of French entertainment, the Olympia inParis, to loud applause. Shortly afterwards, she released her first album in theFrench language, the eponymous Mary Roos, followed a year later by theDirection L'Aventure LP. Passionate French love songs, flawlessly rendered. Housedin a digipack with a 20-page booklet with copious liner notes by Jan Feddersenand photographs.