Originally from the UK, Petula Clark is probably the most successful artist in both her native country as her adoptive country, France. Singers with cute French accents were all the rage, but even today, Petula remains the leader of the pack. Other English-language singers that come to mind are Jane Birkin, Blossom Dearie, April March and Nanette Workman (read my article about her at Filles Sourires).

Her style was also very prim and proper, which endeared her to an enormous audience. Her most well-known hit has to be “Downtown”, recorded in French as “Dans le temps”, which like many other hits can be heard on Radio Oh la la.

I’ve added more Paris Combo to the playlist. They are part of my excursion into more recent music, while remaing faithful to the Oh la la sound. Occasionally, you can catch some tunes close to chanson and sometimes, you’ll hear more modern sounds, such as the jazzy ones of Paris Combo.

On a different note, I’ve added some music by Tony Roman and Nanette Workman and Les Double Six.

Guuzbourg of Filles Sourires fame, a blog featuring all kinds of frauleins, kindly invited me to guest blog. I was all too happy to oblige with a first piece about Dalida. Future guest blogs will include non-retro femmes of the 70s and 80s, many of which I plan to learn more about. Filles Sourires likes all kinds of girls and that’s the best part.

For even more pictures of retro favourites and a visual taste of everything else, there’s always Blow Up Doll.

Facing this overwhelming collection of girls, Oh la la will continue to feature Retro rogues. Let the boys write about the girls and the girls write about the boys. How very retro!