Hervé Cristiani, a guitarist trained with Mireille at the Petit Conservatoire, shared the stage with Higelin, Le Forestier and Cabrel. In 1981, on acoustic guitar, he recorded the portrait of a man who owns nothing and whom nothing holds back: five hundred thousand records sold. Eight years later he dared an album of multiplication tables, which sold almost as many.
The story
The title of the song is carved on the stone, with its three dots: “Il est libre Max …” — Max is free. Few graves at Père-Lachaise quote a work like that.
Born at Neuilly-sur-Seine on 8 November 1947, a guitarist who passed through Mireille's Petit Conservatoire and the American Center, Hervé Cristiani shared the stage with Marcel Dadi, Jacques Higelin and Maxime Le Forestier, and toured for years with Francis Cabrel. His first album, Au pays de Mélodie, came out in 1975. Then came 1981: an acoustic-guitar song about a man who owns nothing and is free. The single sold five hundred thousand copies.
In 1989 he did what few songwriters dare: a record of the multiplication tables, La Multiplicato. It sold four hundred thousand — almost as many as the hit, for an object nobody expected of him.
In 2013 he announced on Facebook that he had throat cancer. He died of it on 16 July 2014, at sixty-six. The stone owns what made him known, and adds nothing.
The grave
A simple grave whose inscription does what few stones dare: it quotes the song. “Hervé CRISTIANI, 1947-2014, Il est libre Max …” — Max is free — with the three dots of the ellipsis. The record, released by RCA in 1981, sold five hundred thousand copies; it remained his only really great success, and his grave owns up to it.
On site, do not miss
The epitaph carves the title of the song with its ellipsis: “Hervé CRISTIANI, 1947-2014, Il est libre Max …”
Visitors' questions
Where is Hervé Cristiani's grave?
In Division 16, chemin de Lesseps, first row, beneath a stone that carves the title of his song, ellipsis and all: “Hervé CRISTIANI, 1947-2014, Il est libre Max …”. Few graves in the cemetery quote a work like that.
Patrice ChéreauWhen did “Il est libre Max” come out?
In 1981, on RCA: five hundred thousand copies sold for an acoustic-guitar song about a man who owns nothing and is free. It remained his only very great success, six years after his first record, Au pays de Mélodie.
Francis LemarqueDid he write anything else?
He did, and one curiosity: La Multiplicato, in 1989, a record of the multiplication tables set to songs. It sold four hundred thousand copies — nearly as many as his great hit, and for something nobody expected from a songwriter.
Michel DelpechWhat did he die of?
Cancer of the vocal cords, on 16 July 2014. He had announced his illness himself on Facebook in 2013: for a singer, where the cancer had settled said everything there was to understand. He was sixty-six.
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