Patricia Noëlle Kaas (; born 5 December 1966) is a French singer. Her music is a mix of pop, cabaret, jazz, and chanson.
Since the appearance of her 1988 debut album Mademoiselle chante..., Kaas won 6 Victoires de la Musique awards and has sold over 20 million records worldwide. She had her greatest success in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Russia, Finland, Ukraine, and South Korea with her third album Je te dis vous. In 2002, Kaas made her film debut in And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen with Jeremy Irons. She represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow and finished in eighth place.
Career 1966–1984: Early life Patricia Noëlle Kaas, the youngest of her family, was born on 5 December 1966 in Forbach, Lorraine, France, near the German border. Her father, Joseph Kaas (1927–1996), a miner, was a French Germanophone, and her mother, Irmgard (née Thiel; 1930–1989), was a German from Saar. Kaas grew up in Stiring-Wendel, between Forbach and Saarbrücken on the French side of the border. Until the age of six, she spoke only Lorraine Franconian. Her mother encouraged Kaas, then a young girl, to become a singer. At the age of only eight Kaas was already singing songs by Sylvie Vartan, Dalida, Claude François and Mireille Mathieu, as well as English-language songs such as "New York, New York", at various small events such as the marriage of her brother. Her first real success came when she received first place at a pop song contest.
Kaas took her first step into the professional music business at the age of 13, when, with the help of her brother Egon, she signed a contract with the Saarbrücken club Rumpelkammer. Kaas took the name Pady Pax — after Pax Majorettes, a brass band from Stiring-Wendel, of which she and her sister Carine were members — and for seven years appeared with the band, Dob's Lady Killers. At 16, she took a placement with a model agency in Metz. Her first attempts to break into the music business failed; a producer rejected her on the ground that the world did not need a second Mireille Mathieu. Kaas's producer at this time was the architect Bernard Schwartz.
1985–1986: Jalouse and The Beginnings In 1985, at 19 years old, Kaas was sponsored by French actor Gérard Depardieu. Schwartz had seen her singing at the Rumpelkammer in Saarbrücken and introduced her to the songwriter François Bernheim. Bernheim worked with her and convinced Depardieu to produce her music.
Depardieu produced Kaas's first single Jalouse (Eng: Jealous), written by Bernheim and Depardieu's wife, Élisabeth. The single was published by EMI, but was a flop. Nonetheless, her encounter with Depardieu was one of the most important events at the beginning of Kaas's artistic career.
1987–1989: Mademoiselle chante le blues Through Jalouse and Bernheim, the French songwriter Didier Barbelivien became aware of Kaas. His song Mademoiselle chante le blues (Eng: Lady sings the blues) was the singer's first big hit. The single was published in 1987 by Polydor, and reached 7th place in the French singles chart. The next year, Kaas's second single D'Allemagne (Eng: From Germany) was recorded, written by Barbelivien and Bernheim.
Shortly afterwards, Kaas's first album Mademoiselle chante... was produced. It reached 2nd place in the French album charts and stayed there for two months, remaining in the Top 10 for 64 weeks and 118 weeks in the top 100. Shortly after its appearance the album went gold in France (over 100,000 sold) and after three months it went platinum (over 350,000 sold). The album also went platinum in Belgium and Switzerland, and gold in Canada. In the same year, Kaas won Victoires de la Musique in the category of "Discovery of the Year", one of the most significant French music awards.
In 1989, "Mon mec à moi" was voted "La chanson française" by radio listeners across France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada, highlighting its widespread appeal in the Francophone world. The same year, Kaas suffered a traumatic personal experience, when her mother fell ill from cancer and died. The teddy bear Kaas sent to support her mother's convalescence today accompanies her everywhere as a mascot.
1990–1992: Scène de vie In 1990, Kaas began her first world tour, which lasted 16 months in total. She sang in front of about 750,000 fans in over 196 concerts in 12 countries. Among others, Kaas sang daily for a week at the Olympia and Zenith, one of the most famous concert halls in Paris. The concerts were sold out four months before they began. Kaas also gave other successful concerts in New York and Washington D.C. in the U.S.A. At the end of the tour, Mademoiselle chante... had sold 1 million copies in France alone, achieving diamond status. Kaas received the Goldene Europa, one of the biggest German music awards.
In 1990, Kaas moved from her former record company, Polydor, to CBS/Sony. Cyril Prieur and Richard Walter, of the Paris firm Talent Sorcier, replaced Bernard Schwartz to become her managers in 1987. Prieur and Walter contributed significantly to the singer's success, in return for which Kaas referred to them as her "family".
With a new record company, she produced Scène de vie (Eng: The Stage of Life) in 1990. It reached the top of the French charts and stayed there for 10 weeks, going diamond in the process as Mademoiselle chante... had done before it. With the song Kennedy Rose, Kaas again worked with Elisabeth Depardieu and François Bernheim. This collaboration was more successful than Jalouse, reaching 34th place in the French singles charts. The song was dedicated to Rose Kennedy, matriarch of the Kennedy clan, and mother of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
While on the Scène de vie tour, the singer performed 210 concerts before 650,000 spectators in 13 countries, among them Japan, Canada and the USSR, where she sang in Moscow and Leningrad. At the end of 1991, her first live album Carnets de scène (Eng: Stage Notebooks) appeared, which achieved popularity beyond her dedicated fans. 13 years later, Sony also published the album as a live DVD.
In 1991, Kaas received two further awards, the World Music Award and a Bambi. In the following year, she received 3rd place in the category of 'Best International Female Singer' at the ECHO awards in Cologne, nominated alongside Cher (who received first place), Tina Turner, Madonna and Whitney Houston, four of the biggest names in the music business.
During her Scène de vie tour, Patricia Kaas received critical acclaim for her ability to revitalize the classic French music-hall tradition. A review in The New York Times described her as a "charismatic young performer" who effectively reinvented the legacy of Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour in a contemporary, yet respectful manner. The review noted that despite performing primarily in French, Kaas's strong theatrical presence and sharp, cutting alto allowed her to connect with American audiences, showcasing her international appeal.
1993–1994: Je te dis vous
Kaas's 1993 album Je te dis vous (Eng.: I'm addressing you formally) was her definitive breakthrough in the international music scene, selling 3 million copies in 47 countries. It was produced in Pete Townshend's Eel Pie Studio in London, England by Robin Millar, who had already worked for Sade and the Fine Young Cannibals. In the U.S. and United Kingdom, it appeared under the name of Tour de charme (not to be confused with the live album of the same name). On the album, Kaas sang her first song in German: the song Ganz und gar (Eng: Absolutely) came from the pen of the German singer and songwriter Marius Müller-Westernhagen. The album also featured three tracks in English, including a cover of the James Brown number It's A Man's World. The British rock musician Chris Rea accompanied Kaas on the tracks Out of the Rain and Ceux qui n'ont rien (Eng: Those who have nothing) on guitar.
Je te dis vous became Kaas's most successful album in the German-speaking world, only just missing out on the German top 10 (it spent 2 weeks at 11th place), but spending 36 weeks in the top 100. In Switzerland, Kaas reached 2nd place in the album charts, and 1st in France. It was her third album to go diamond, 11 months after its appearance. With the single Il me dit que je suis belle (Eng: He tells me I'm beautiful) by Sam Brewski (aka Jean-Jacques Goldman), Kaas achieved her second top five single in France. A remix of Reste sur moi (Eng: Stay on me) reached the top 20 of the American dance charts.
The world tour that followed covered 19 countries. She was the first western singer to appear in Hanoi, Vietnam, after the Vietnam War, and she also toured in Cambodia, Japan, Korea and Thailand. During the tour, she also gave a benefit concert in Chernobyl in front of 30,000 spectators. In total, her audience counted 750,000 in 150 concerts. In 1994, her second live album Tour de charme (Eng: A tour with charm) was published, which, like Carnets de scène, was remade as a live DVD in 2004.
The LP was released as Tour de Charme (not to be mistaken with her second live album) in the US (on 17 August 1993) and the United Kingdom, and shows a slightly different track-listing: Track 2 of the wider version (Hôtel Normandy) was replaced by a previously unreleased track (A Saint-Lunaire). Track 10 is her rendering of La Vie en Rose Ganz und Gar and Out of the Rain were dropped from this version.
1995–1996: Black Coffee In the middle of the 1990s, the album Black Coffee was produced, an enigma in Kaas's career. In 1995, it was decided to produce a work specially for the American market, and containing exclusively English lyrics. It is rumoured that the album was never officially sold. It occasionally becomes available in on-line auctions, however, but the authenticity of such records is in doubt.
The title track of the album is a cover version of the Billie Holiday song of the same name, and was likewise published by Kaas on the 1997 sampler Jazz à Saint-Germain (release by Virgin). Other cover versions on the album include classics such as the Bill Withers number Ain't No Sunshine (which was taken for advertisement music for the Club Mediterranée) from 1971, and If You Leave Me Now by Chicago from 1976.
1997–1998: Dans ma chair In 1997 Dans ma chair (Eng: In my flesh) was made. It was produced in New York by Kaas and Phil Ramone, who had previously worked with Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon. The album marked the second time the singer officially worked with the French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman (they began to work together in 1993 for the song "Il me dit que je suis belle"). The collaboration with Goldman, which continues, was one of the most important of Kaas's career.
Further contributors to the success of the album were the American songwriter and singer Lyle Lovett, with the song Chanson simple (Eng: Simple song), and James Taylor with Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight, on which he duetted with Kaas. The track "Quand j'ai peur de tout" (Eng: When I'm afraid of everything), written by Diane Warren, was remade in 2003 by the band Sugababes under the name "Too Lost in You".
In 1998, following the Dans ma chair tour, the live album and video cassette (later, DVD) Rendez-vous was produced. Among the tracks are L'aigle noir (Eng: The black eagle) by the French singer and songwriter Barbara, whom Kaas had admired for a long time.
In December 1998 Kaas sang with the tenors Plácido Domingo and Alejandro Fernández in the Guildhall of Vienna, Austria. The three were accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert was made into a CD and DVD in 1999 as Christmas in Vienna Vol. VI.
1999–2000: Le mot de passe