French singer elodieO

You can hear it in her breathy articulation of lyrics. Like her song that’s getting reasonably good airplay on independent radio stations here at the moment.

It’s called "Crazy."

That girlish voice gets the equally girlish name, elodieO. Girlish, because it comes from grade school she says.

"When I was a kid I was in school, and there was two Elodies in the school. And one was elodie F and one was elodie O."

She was elodie O, for Ozanne. At the time, the Ozanne family was deep into the arts. Her father rented property from another artistic family: the Eiffels…you know them as the Eiffels. That would be the grandson of Gustav Eiffel, yes the one who built that tower.

"So we shared this property, they were very very good friends, and then my dad left with one of the Eiffel grand grand daughter. I mean it probably would have happened with someone else, but it was the big big drama of my family for the next fifteen years."

Very French indeed…and a chapter of her life that elodieO kind of shrugs off. She removed herself that big family drama to the gray, understated environment of London. And elodieO started down her own road.

"I totally fell in love with London when I was 18. I went there with a friend of mine, and we started making like French sandwiches and selling them in the street because we wanted to stay so badly, like I felt perfectly in tune with everything, the weather, the people."

And when she got to New York City a few years ago, things fell into place for elodieO. Oddly, once she got some acting and singing gigs in New York, elodieO found the music of her native France too much to resist. Specifically the songs of late 60s crooner Serge Gainsbourg.

Like every other French person I’ve always been an extreme fan of Serge Gainsbourg, so after I did all the musical theater thing, a couple of off-Broadway shows etc., I started my jazz band, and little by little I replaced jazz standards by singing Serge Gainsbourg songs."

ElodieO’s infatuation with Serge Gainsbourg, as well as her songs inspired by New York, London and Paris are etched in her debut solo album, titled "Stubborn."

Support PRI when you purchase elodieO’s album "Stubborn" .

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