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Barbara

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There is more than one artist with this name:

1) Barbara was a popular French female singer born as Monique Andrée Serf (June 9, 1930 - November 25, 1997) best known under her stage name . Barbara was the title of a famous song in the fifties whose text comes from Prévert.

Monique Serf, born in Paris, France, into a Jewish family, was ten years old when she had to go into hiding during the German occupation of France in World War II. After the war ended, a neighborhood professor of music heard Monique sing and took an interest in helping her develop her talents. She was given vocal lessons and taught to play the piano and eventually she enrolled at the Ecole Supérieure de Musique. However, money was a problem and she gave up her musical studies to sing at “La Fontaine des Quatre Saisons,” a then popular cabaret in Paris.

A sensitive girl, she was deeply scarred by the war and her family’s plight. Her inner feelings of emptiness showed in her appearance and in her songs. It is reported by Barbara in her interrupted autobiography, “il etait un piano noir”, that her father sexually abused her when she was ten. He would leave the family to never return- Barbara would come to his burial in Nantes, which originated one of her most popular songs (“Nantes”), immortalizing that time in her life. A tall person, she dressed in black, accentuating her raven hair, as she sang melancholic songs of lost love.
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L'Aigle Noir full track
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Nantes full track
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Le Mal De Vivre full track
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Une Petite Cantate full track
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Pierre full track
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Göttingen full track
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Gottingen full track
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Chapeau Bas full track
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Ne me quitte pas full track
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Mon Enfance full track
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