French singer Maxime Le Forestier performs Georges Brassens in a set of 171 songs.

A way of paying homage to this master with whom he learned everything.

The singer was the guest of Anne Roumanoff in "It feels good", Friday, on Europe 1. He tells about his relationship with one of the popes of French song. 

When asked to choose a song by Georges Brassens, Maxime Le Forestier responds tit for tat: "It's impossible".

And for good reason, the singer takes 171 titles of his idol in a reissue of notebooks 1 and 2 in 9 CDs.

But also a book,

Brassens and me

.

He came to present them in Anne Roumanoff's program

It

feels

good,

Friday on Europe 1. 

That was almost sixty years ago.

Maxime Le Forestier, still a teenager, pushes the door of a sheet music shop in the Bastille district of Paris.

"I bought four songs by Brassens and

La Mama

d'Aznavour", confides the singer at the microphone of Europe 1. "Brassens was like a switchman for me. In the same week, I discovered the guitar, the song - because we weren't listening to it at home - and Brassens… That's a lot! ", he continues. 

The day Gibraltar gave him "the bible"

Then his career is launched.

He meets Georges Brassens.

"Until his death, I was satisfied with his songs," admits Maxime Le Forestier.

He then began to take an interest in the life of this monument of French song.

"After his death, close friends needed to talk." 

And they came to find him like Pierre Onténiente, nicknamed "Gibraltar".

He gives Maxime Le Forestier all of Brassens' songs.

"The bible", blows the artist.

"Gibraltar gave me this book saying that it was all that Georges would have liked that survived him. In it, there are all the recorded songs, songs performed that are not by him, thirteen texts without music, and finally about twenty songs that were ready, "he says. 

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So he decides to pay tribute to his mentor by resuming these titles.

"For me, Brassens was for song what Bach was for classical music. So he deserved his whole thing".

Before adding in an amused tone: "I am modestly his Glenn Gould".

Italian influences

L'Auvergnat, Les sabots d'Hélène, le Gorille

… a whole bunch of titles with multiple influences.

"Some melodies resemble what we can hear in Venice on a carnival day. But also the gypsies for this child of the Django generation, born in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, near Sète. And of course religious music which often influences bawdy songs ". 

So even if Maxime Le Forestier does not want to choose among Brassens' songs, he recommends three little-known songs, the last of which is posthumous:

Elegie à un rat de cave

,

Myosotis

and

L'orphelin

.