Frank Alamo was born Jean-François Grandin and was one of the soloists of the Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois before running into Eddie Barclay at Val-d'Isère. The 1960s belonged to him: “Biche ô ma biche”, the Beatles sung in French, the Olympia, the tours of the yé-yé generation. In 1969 he gave it all up, at twenty-eight, and would later run a family motor business.
The story
Jean-François Grandin was born on 12 October 1941. A soloist with the Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, he met Eddie Barclay at Val-d'Isère: out of that meeting came Frank Alamo.
The 1960s were his. “Biche ô ma biche”, an adaptation of Sweets for My Sweet, then the Beatles sung in French: he belonged to the yé-yé generation and its tours, opening for Sheila's “tour of the century” at the turn of 1964, and playing the Olympia in October of that year for the gala of the young idols.
In 1969, at twenty-eight, he stopped. He joined the family firm and was from 1983 to 1996 chairman and managing director of Jeep Dallas — a French off-roader built in some five thousand examples between 1981 and 1994.
He went back on stage from 2006 to 2010 for the first four seasons of the “Âge tendre et Têtes de bois” tour, with motor neurone disease already diagnosed. He went on singing for as long as the voice would hold.
He died in Paris on 11 October 2012, the eve of his seventy-first birthday, and lies in Division 25 — the division of the Molière and La Fontaine monuments — under a stone bearing both his name and his stage name.
On site, do not miss
A sober stone on which the real name and the stage name follow one another: “Jean-François Grandin, known as Frank Alamo”.
Visitors' questions
Where is Frank Alamo's grave?
In Division 25, Transverse Avenue No. 1, first row, in the older part of the cemetery. It is the most visited division at Père-Lachaise: the tombs of Molière and Jean de La Fontaine stand just a few steps away.
Gilbert BécaudWhat is Frank Alamo's best-known song?
“Biche ô ma biche”, a French adaptation of “Sweets for My Sweet”, released in the early 1960s. He also sang the Beatles in French translation, at the height of the yé-yé wave, of which he was one of the leading voices.
Jean-Baptiste ClémentWhy did he give up singing?
He left the stage in 1969, at twenty-eight, for the family business. From 1983 to 1996 he ran the carmaker Jeep Dallas — a second career as long as the first had been brief.
Henri SalvadorWhat did Frank Alamo die of?
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neurone disease, on 11 October 2012 in Paris, the day before his seventy-first birthday. He had continued touring until 2010 despite the diagnosis.
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