Barbara (singer) - Musical Development

Musical Development

A tall person, Serf dressed in black, accentuating her raven hair, as she sang melancholy songs of lost love. From 1950 to 1952, after running away following her father's desertion of her family, she lived in Brussels, Belgium where she became part of an active artistic community. Her painter and writer friends took over an old house, converting it into workshops and a concert hall with a piano where Monique performed the songs of Édith Piaf, Juliette Gréco and Germaine Montéro. However, her career evolved slowly and she struggled constantly to eke out a living. In October 1953 she married Claude John Luc Sluys, a Belgian law student, but they separated in 1956. Later in life, she wrote about her relationships with men in a song saying: "They walk proudly, my men/ I in the front/ them just behind."

Returning to Paris, she would meet Jacques Brel and become a lifelong friend, singing many of his songs. Later, she met Georges Brassens whose songs she would eventually begin to use in her act and to record her first album. In the 1950s, she obtained singing engagements at some of the smaller clubs and began building a fan base, particularly with the young students from the Latin Quarter. In 1957 she went back to Brussels to make her first record single but it was not until 1961 that she got a real break when she was engaged to perform at the famous Bobino Music-Hall in Montparnasse. Dressed in a long black robe, she gave a haunting performance but the tough Parisian critics were not kind, saying she lacked naturalness and was stiff and formal in her presentation. She continued to perform at small clubs and two years later at the Théâtre des Capucines, she captured the imagination of the audience and critics alike with an astonishingly powerful performance with new material she had penned herself. From that point on, her career blossomed and she signed a major recording contract in 1964 with Philips Records.