Farewell to Catherine Ribeiro

She disappeared on the night of August 22nd at the age of 82 Catherine RibeiroFrench singer known in her country as the “red pasionaria”.

Born in Lyon to Portuguese parents, Catherine Ribeiro (Christiane Marie Marguerite Ribeiro) has lived a life that has not always been easy, between a rape at 21, an overbearing mother who even had her locked up in a mental asylum to prevent her from seeing the boy she loved and where she was subjected to electroshock, experiences that have entered her artistic baggage.

After riding the yé-yé wave in the mid-sixties (his recording debut dates back to 1964), he performed some French adaptations of songs by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and at the beginning of the following decade the French artist followed new stylistic paths, even more experimental with songs in which he laughs, shouts, launches into onomatopoeia and sensual sighs, or tackles much darker themes (such as the story of a suicide attempt that took place on August 15, 1970) and oriented himself towards sounds halfway between psychedelia and prog-rock, between minimalist music and repetitive jazz. Two groups were founded in that period: first 2bis and then Alpes.

Catherine Ribeiro was a lucid observer of her time, omnipresent in the political struggles of the 60s and 70s; she fought against the war in Vietnam and for universal peace, taking a stand for prisoners in Chile. She participated in anti-Franco concerts and movements for women’s causes. She was the first French artist to make an album in favor of the ecological cause: “Le Rat débile et L’Homme des champs”, in 1974, with Alpes.

The world of cinema also called her. Her debut on the set was with “Les Carabiniers” (1963) by Godard. In 1964 she acted in the film “Buffalo Bill – L’eroe del Far West” by John W. Fordson (pseudonym of Mario Costa). She reappeared on film in 1975 with “Le Vivarium” by Jacques Richard and again in 1993 with “Chants de femmes” by Richard Olivier.

In the 1970s, he filled prestigious venues such as the Olympia and the Bobino and played at numerous prestigious festivals in front of several thousand people, such as the first edition of the Printemps de Bourges festival in 1977 and the Fête de l’Humanité, where he performed in front of 120,000 spectators.

In 1971, the French magazine Rock & Folk included her among the 10 best female singers in the world. In this ranking, she is next to names such as Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Tina Turner, and Aretha Franklin. From 1982 to 2002, she interpreted the great songs of the French repertoire of artists such as Jacques Prévert, Édith Piaf, Léo Ferré and others. In 1982, she also collaborated with Peter Gabrielwho wrote the song “Dans le Creux de Ta Nuit” for her, included in the album “Soleil dans l’ombre”, where the English musician accompanied the French artist on the piano.

After a long silence, on January 11, 2008 he performed at the Bataclan in Paris, a concert from which a double CD entitled “Live” was produced.

In recent years, particularly affected by the deaths of her daughter and husband and herself the victim of a stroke in 2020, Catherine Ribeiro has distanced herself from the scene. For years she had lived in a remote house in the heart of the Ardennes forest, on the border between France and Germany. For 2013 she had announced the release of an autobiographical novel, but it was never realized.