Kim Wilde’s first records were written and produced by her father and brother, Marty and Ricky. The three of them have had a great influence on the music world, as this regular series ‘Wilde World’ shows.
There are many foreign language versions of Marty Wilde’s composition ‘Abergavenny’. Most of them don’t directly translate the lyrics of the original but rather build on the melody to write a lyric about festivities. Claude François’ version ‘Les majorettes’, released in 1968 like the original, is a good example. It appeared on his album ‘Eloise’.
Born on February 1, 1939, Claude François was a successfulo entertainer throughout the Sixties and Seventies and during his career he sold millions of records. In 1975, while in London, he narrowly escaped death when an IRA bomb exploded in the lobby of the Hilton hotel and two years later a fan tried to shoot him while he drove his car. Three years later, he returned to his apartment in Paris after recording a television special for the BBC on March 11, 1978. While taking a shower, he noticed that the light fixture was not straight on the wall; he tried to straighten it and was electrocuted. It was a bizarre and untimely death.
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