A rock pioneer in France with his 1958 hit " D'où viens-tu Billy Boy? ", Danyel Gérard was born in Paris on March 7, 1939, under the name Gérard Daniel Kherlakian. Of Armenian origin on his father's side and Corsican on his mother's, he grew up in Brazil and then France, where Nino Ferrer taught him to play guitar. In September 1958, under the influence of American rock'n'roll, he recorded his first single, featuring Boris Vian's adaptation of Jerry Lee Lewis's "D'où viens-tu Billy Boy", the Kalin Twins' "When " and two of his own compositions, including "Tais-toi". Before leaving for the Algerian war for military service, from which he returned with three medals, Danyel Gérard recorded "Tout l'amour", the title track of his second EP for the Barclay label. On his return, he signed to Polydor, composing for Les Chaussettes Noires, Richard Anthony and Dalida. At the height of the Twist wave, he was crowned champion of the genre with "Petit Gonzalès" (1962), a hit on every transistor radio. Accompanied on tour by his group Les Danger's or Les Fantômes and Les Champions, the young rocker was recruited by Lucien Morisse's Disc'AZ label, for a new series of American-flavored songs and the album On S'En Balance (1964), after having signed the soundtracks for Claude Lelouch's L'Amour avec des si and Jacques Poitrenaud's L'Inconnue de Hong-Kong. He gives Marie Laforêt the hit "Les Vendanges de l'amour", records in London with Jimmy Page and composes for the film Les Poneyttes (1967), in which he stars alongside Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. A new period began for Danyel Gérard, who created Dany Music and the PDG label, before bouncing back to CBS in 1970. Now a folk singer, he achieved worldwide success with the ballad "Butterfly " (1971), which reached No. 1 in several European countries including Germany, No. 11 in the UK and No. 78 in the USA. In 1973, his new Gypsy label released the hits "Ti-Lai-Lai-Li", "Le Gypsy", "Un grand amour" (no. 12), "Les Temps changent" (no. 14), "Mélodie, mélodie" (no. 10) and "Marylou " (no. 3). He also founded the hard rock band Hord, and entered the new decade with the albums Regard (1982) and Nostalgia... "In" America (1983). After giving up singing to run the FM radio station Music Box, which he founded in 1981, Danyel Gérard returned to country music with the album Good or Bad (1991) and the Country Music Show tour, between appearances at the Âge tendre galas (2007, 2008 and 2013).
