Joe Dassin
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Joseph Ira Dassin (November 5, 1938 – August 20, 1980) was a French-speaking American expatriate musician. He later acquired dual citizenship (French and American).
The song "The Guitar Don't Lie" by Tony Joe White was written by Dassin as "Le marché aux puces".
Biography
Dassin was born in New York City to film noir director Jules Dassin and Béatrice Launer. He began his childhood first in New York and Los Angeles, California. However after his father became a victim of the anti-communist policies of Senator Joseph McCarthy, he and his family moved from place to place across Europe.
After studying at the International School of Geneva and the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, Dassin moved back to the United States to go to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After college, he moved back to France where, while working at a radio station, a record label convinced him to begin to record his songs.
By the early 1970s, Dassin's songs were on the top of the charts in France and he had become very well known. He was also a talented polyglot, recording songs in German, Spanish, Italian and Greek, as well as French and English.
He died of a heart attack during a vacation to Tahiti on August 20, 1980. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.
