Fred Mella, the companion of the song

Fred Mella in concert, October 2012. © RFI / Edmond Sadaka

11/17/2019

Tenor and soloist of the Compagnons de la Chanson for more than forty years, he was also their behind-the-scenes photographer and one of the most endearing characters of the French showbiz of the time. He has just disappeared at the age of 95, this Saturday, November 16, 2019.

Fred Mella has accomplished the challenge of making a name without leaving his group. Certainly, his exceptional voice had made him the soloist of the Compagnons de la Chanson , but he had managed to release a personality of his own or even to appear as the primus inter pares of the most popular vocal ensemble of the Francophonie.

He was not one of the first five Companions of Music who, in 1941, began to crisscross the roads of the Free Zone by singing a folkloric repertoire and pseudo-medieval, as is the fashion at the time.

Fred Mella, son of Italian immigrants born in 1924 in Ardèche, he joined them in 1943. With his beautiful tenor voice and his impressive accuracy, he was immediately designated as a soloist. Become Song Companions and reaching the number of nine singers, they become stars almost overnight when Edith Piaf takes them under her wing and records with them The Three Bells - Fred Mella holding the voice of perfect purity , which contrasts beautifully with the tragic voice of the Mother.

A 40-year adventure

From the neo-folkloric song (like the famous Galérien which will be, in 1950, one of their biggest successes) to adaptations of success of the moment ( The Green Submarine , according to The Yellow Submarine of the Beatles), of songs original (often signed by the Compagnon Jean Broussolle) in prestigious compositions (many songs of Charles Aznavour , in particular), the adventure of the Companions of the Song will last forty years, forty discs and more than 8000 spectacles.

The group travels the world and links tube to tube, while constituting a singular community in which each has a well-defined function. Fred Mella, who confesses a vocation returned from painter, is the photographer of the group. He takes, behind the scenes and traveling, many photos of the Companions of the Song, their multiple encounters and countries crossed.

Later, he will present these memories with those of two other singers-photographers, Paul Tourenne of the Brothers Jacques and Pierre Jamet of the Four Barbus. It is also the most "job" of the Companions. In addition to Charles Aznavour, he is the friend of Georges Brassens , Charles Trenet , Boby Lapointe , Fernand Raynaud, Raymond Devos, Lino Ventura, professional and human comrades, whom he will mention later in My Enchanting Masters , his book of memoirs.

Game over

The Companions, in spite of the fact that they always fill the rooms, start in 1980 in their farewell tour. It will last five years, interrupted a few months by an operation of the heart of Fred Mella. While all the old Companions turn away from the song (Jean-Louis Jaubert at the French Football Federation, Jo Frachon as TV host ...), he continues his job.

But nothing to do with the exhausting rhythm of the Companions' career: Fred Mella gives concerts from afar, for the pleasure of sharing another enchanted repertoire with a nostalgic public, as in December 2008 at the Olympia, almost twenty- four years after the last concert, in this same room, of the Compagnons de la Chanson.

By: Bertrand Dicale

Fred Mella - Companions of the song

French Song - France