Space Oddities - Bernard Estardy (Vinyl)

A master of the mixing board, from the late 60s until the 90s Bernard Estardy was the wizard of French musical recordings. As head of CBE studios, he shaped everything from Gérard Manset's concept albums to Claude François' hit singles, Françoise Hardy's delicate tear-jerkers and Michel Sardou's soul-stirrers. This “giant” had his hand in the whole range of mainstream French music by making his studio a veritable playground for experimentation. His legendary album “La Formule du Baron,” released in 1969, and the eight LPs of production music he made between 1974 and 1978 for Tele Music are vivid proof. In the CBE studio, which she runs today, his daughter Julie Estardy discussed his singular career.

My dad came from a well-off family. He was born in 1939 and never knew his father, who died in May 1940 during the war. His mother raised him alone, and then she remarried and he lived with a stepfather who was pretty hard on him. My dad lived in a mansion in the 17th arrondissement of Paris after a period out of the city to escape wartime conditions. At 7, he was already an exceptional child, running around with screwdrivers and hammers and dismantling everything in the house. He was curious, a great dreamer and quite timid. He wanted to understand the world, and tried by all means possible to escape his home.