French vocal trio Belle Epoque had their biggest (and possibly only) hit single in 1977 with disco classic Black Is Black.
My 12-inch disco mix of this exuberant disco classic must have sat oddly amid my other singles that year by the likes of The Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and The Jam.
But I loved it nonetheless – and I still do.
In those pre-internet days I didn’t have a clue who Belle Epoque were; I’m pretty sure there were no features about them in my weekly copies of Sounds, NME and Melody Maker.
If there were, I was probably distracted by articles about The Stranglers kidnapping a journalist or photos of punk pin-up Gaye Advert (who once gave me her phone number… which I lost on the way home).
Belle Epoque were a vocal trio from France consisting of Evelyne “Evy” Lenton and two back-up singers: Jusy Fortes (aka Judy Lisboa) from Cape Verde and Marcia Briscoe from Atlanta, Georgia.
Unknown to me at the time, it’s a remake of a 1966 hit by a Spanish group called Los Bravos, which is also fantastic in an entirely different non-disco way – and both versions peaked at No.2 in the UK singles chart.
Interestingly (if you find pop trivia as interesting as I), the singer of Los Bravos – a German guy called Mike Kogel – spoke so little English that he had to have the lyrics written out phonetically for him to sing.
The curious result was that his dramatic yelp and overwrought phrasing made him sound almost exactly like Gene Pitney – so much so that many radio listeners assumed it was a Pitney single at the time.