Hervé Cristiani is best known for the 1980s hit "Il est libre Max". Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 8, 1947, he sang in his school choir and learned to play guitar. In Paris, he attended the American Center, where he performed alongside other established and novice musicians, and Mireille's Petit Conservatoire de la chanson for singing. After a first album entitled "Le Palais du roi" and the duet "La Femme fleur" with Dick Annegarn, his name appears in the credits of Jean Yanne's film Moi y'en a vouloir des sous with the title "Pour l'amour des sous". A poker game with the artistic director of the Polydor label enabled him to record his first concept album, Au Pays de Mélodie (1975), followed by Campanules (1976), featuring arranger Jean Schultheis. Moving to Warner Bros., he produced the album Récréation and debuted a new song on stage, "Il est libre Max", which opened the Hervé Cristiani opus (1981), before giving it its title on subsequent editions. Adopted by radio stations and ranked No. 6 on the charts, the song followed the singer wherever he went, in concert or on TV, and became one of the most listened-to songs of the decade. Other titles such as "Radio bonheur", "Salve Regina" and "Hey Money" followed, without success, until the album 5 (1983) for RCA and the educational records for young people, La Multiplicato (1989) and L'Alphabet (1991). His career then took a more discreet turn on independent labels with the albums Antinoüs (1990) and Paix à Nos Os (2008), on which he invited his friends Francis Cabrel, Alain Souchon, Michel Jonasz and Yannick Noah, while their author composed for documentaries on tennis and advertising. In 2003, his book Il est libre Max won the Prix de la Ville de Toulouse. On July 16, 2014, Hervé Cristiani died in Paris of throat cancer, aged 66. His grave in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (Paris) faces that of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors.
