Gilles Dreu was not meant to be a singer. The first passion of Jean-Paul Chapuisat (his real name), was especially turned towards the sport. As a teenager he tried athletics, cycling, rugby, scuba diving and rock climbing. It was therefore natural that he turned to studies as a PE teacher. Caught up in his military obligations, he spent 30 months in Algeria. On his return, he began to frequent the cabarets of Montmartre. During an evening at the Tire-Bouchon, he found himself on stage singing “When we have that love”. His performance earned him being hired by the owner and returning the next day for three titles. Goodbye sport, make way for the stage and therefore a pseudonym. He chose Dreu, his hometown, removing the X there. Having thus become a professional singer, he performed a series of performances in Parisian cabarets. Its notoriety sets in smoothly, but does not take off. Thanks to Hugues Auffray, he changes his style. It was then that popularity smiled on him, notably with the track “Alouette”, a cover of La peregrinación, by Ariel Ramírez Misa Criolla, itself a cover of a Moldovan musical theme. In sixty years, successes will follow one another.
In 2019, the group “Lily Cry” offers him to return to the studio. Result? A sixteenth opus has been released on MCA Distribution / Universal Mucic since October 23. Dedicated to friendship, “Le Comptoir des Amis” prefaced by Marcel Amont was composed with the joy of living. Fifteen original songs, 100% French variety, including thirteen that Gille Dreu shares in a duet with big names: Serge Lama, Didier Barbelivien, Gérard Lenorman, Pierre Billon, Jean-Paul Cara, Stone, Alain Turban, Frédéric Zeitoun, David Alexandre Winter and Fabienne Thibault; an album of friends who, as if sitting “at the friends’ counter”, sing to us “so loudly that even in paradise we will be kicked out.”
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