Sapho -

Sapho (born Jan. 10, 1950) is a French vocalist who debuted with a 1977 chanson album on RCA. In 1980, she reemerged as a new wave singer with a second self-titled album on Sonopresse, followed by 1981–87 titles on Pathé, Celluloid, and EPM.

Background

Sapho was born Danielle Dona Esther Ebguy on Jan. 10, 1950, in Marrakech, Morocco, to a Jewish family. Her father was an intellectual who sang, and her childhood environment exposed her to Arabic, Berber, Spanish, French, and Hebrew. Her family left Morocco when she was sixteen and settled in Lyon for a year. Ebguy then spent a year at a boarding school in Lausanne.

At eighteen, Ebguy moved to Paris and enrolled in a literature faculty. She studied theater with director Antoine Vitez and played guitar on Paris streets. Musician Hervé Cristiani brought her to the Petit Conservatoire de Mireille after the pair made a bet that she could pass as a Québécoise. Ebguy auditioned as the invented singer Bergamote and maintained the character for two weeks. The episode convinced her to pursue composition and song. She left theater and adopted Sapho, a reference to Greek poet Sappho.

Around 1975, Sapho met Jean-Luc Pourquiez at Polydor and performed twenty original songs for him with guitar. Pourquiez took her to Studio Davout, where she recorded the songs with a guitarist in one afternoon. He circulated the Revox tape around Paris and secured an RCA contract. RCA executive Bob Soquet selected the comic “Comment j’m’habille” for a 1975 single, which Sapho issued as Louise Bastien (b/w “Le calendrier”). Sapho then asked RCA to finance an album instead of four additional singles. RCA agreed and authorized the LP that appeared in 1977 as the untitled Sapho, commonly identified as Le Balayeur du Rex.

Discography: