She can't get over it: a first album at age 50, which wins an award: "The record won the Grand Prix International from the Academy Charles Cros!" Jovial, Françoise Kucheida tells her story with the verve of the people from northern France. The story of a woman who has always loved to sing. While training to be an elementary school teacher in the Pas-de-Calais, she signed up for the chorus. "The 'director' of the chorus appreciated my voice, and gave me singing lessons."

She then initiated her little ones into song. She enjoyed it so much she started writing texts and lyrics. One day, an inspector came by: "Why don't you let others benefit from your experience?" The mother of three, she had the right to retire early: Françoise became a "troubadour." She then bugged her husband, the deputy mayor of Liévin, to get a space in her city where artists, not necessarily well-known, could play. "Les Trois Pierrots" opened in 1990. Françoise dreamed of having Romain Didier play there. He accepted, and helped her publish her songs for children. At the Festival de Montauban in 1993, Pierre Barouh heard her sing and fell under her charm. The last evening, he compared her to Damia, to Fréhel. Better: he promised her that one day they would make a record together. Françoise did not dare believe it. The miracle happened this year. With the complicity of Romain Didier. De la Scarpe à la Seine (Saravah): good French song to refresh the ear.

Madame Figaro,July 20, 1996

Françoise Kucheida, the Newcomer

After French song entered her, Françoise Kucheida has entered into French song. And by the main door, if you please, with an album that came out a few months ago with Saravah.

A fairy story for this former school teacher who has always been passionate about song.

Artistic director of a small concert hall in Liévin, Françoise Kucheida would travel around from festival to festival in order to prepare her programs.

One evening in Montauban, at the "Alors chante" festival, while she was having dinner in a restaurant, the pianist made a mistake in the words of "La Bohème and Françoise came to his aid. Pierre "chabadabda" Barouh heard her and invited her on stage the next night. Two thousand people were charmed by the voice of Françoise Kucheida.

A first record

Months later, Pierre Barouh kept the promise made in Montauban and Françoise Kucheida recorded her first record. She reprises major classics and new works specially written by Pierre Barouh, Romain Didier and herself.

This record of high quality is a hit. From Alain Poullange of France-Inter to Pascal Sévran of "La Chance aux chansons", everybody invites Françoise Kucheida. A new grande dame of French song is born.

Couleurs Magazine

Latest discovery of the Saravah label created by Pierre Barouh thirty years ago, Françoise Kucheida is a street and bar singer, a realist singer whose accordion underlines the tenderness and the claws. Of her album (the first for this mature woman, the wife of a politician), orchestrated by Romain Didier, Claude Nougaro has written: "She is like a jewel that sings, a ruby heart tormented by the demanding fingers of the jeweler." To be savored at the bar of the Hôtel du Nord, that of Arletty, just made over.

Le Monde

From this (beautiful) voice comes the blues of the mining area (where Françoise Kucheida lives) and the expressionist cheeky humor of singers like Damia and Fréhel. In 1992, at the Festival de Montauban, Pierre Barouh&endash;fallen under her charm&endash;decided on the spot to produce her first record for the general public, after an album for children... Barouh, who interprets here in a duo&endash;and puts to music&endash;a choice text signed by Aragon ("Les Amants de la Place Dauphine").

De la Scarp à la Seine transports us from the land of slag heaps, with the strength of her wounds, to the other side of the world ("Adélaïde", by Debronckart), by way of old-fashioned Paris, where Françoise Kucheida takes the stairways of a Montmartre in black and white,: "La Chanson de Margaret" (Mac Orlan and Marceau), "Tournesol" (Prévert and Kosma), or "Le petit bal perdu", sung with Romain Didier.

The latter offered her (along with Allain Leprest&endash;not bad!), two pearls which express the nostalgia for the bistrots of Northern France inhabited by phantoms and the slag heaps stuck in forgetfulness. A text of a painful melancholy tempered in anthracite:....

A very discreet singer-songwriter, Françoise Kucheida demonstrates a genuine talent as she traces the portrait of "Léon", a generous local figure, in which the emotion passes also through the local patois pronunciation. The arrangements and piano are by Romain Didier, who has been able to reconstitute the ambiance of street songs dominated by nostalgic accordions (Thierry Roques and Daniel Mille)... Songs as we love them, dense and alive.

CHORUS No. 15 ( summer 1996)

With a limpid and compelling voice, she reprises luminously Prévert and Kosma, Barouh and Lai, Leprest and Didier, to the sound of a walzing accordion and a light melancholy. A charming rendez-vous at the Hôtel du Nord.

Télérama

Françoise Kucheida: the Heart of the North

Here's a woman who sings as she breathes. What is called a "nature," a "temperament." Let's say: an interpreter in the full sense of the word. This record is her very first, produced with great enthusiasm by Pierre Barouh who, again, has taken a risk where other companies would not have dared. He can be reassured: the "profession", perspicacious for once, and the public have not taken long to recognize the immense class of this singer and the excellence of her repertory: from Gainsbourg (Petits papiers) to MacOrlan (La Chanson de Margaret), from Aznavour (La Bohème) to Aragon (Les Amants de la Place Dauphine), classics impeccably revisited. And that's not all: other authors have written for her, like Barouh himself (the moving Chanson pour Teddy, with music by Francis Lai), or Allain Leprest and Romain Didier with Le Chevalier de Liévin. Her beloved city where she manages a small theater of 60 seats for other singers. With Françoise Kucheida, the North is honored, the intelligence of the heart as well.

So sing, Françoise Kucheida from Liévin!

We have to believe in fairy stories. The proof. Because she has always loved French song and is the soul of a little club in Liévin, Françoise Kucheida goes from festival to festival to listen to creators. One evening in 1993, in a restaurant, she sang La Bohème. Pierre Barouh heard her. The next day, for the closure of the festival in Montauban, "Alors chante," he invited her up on stage. Maurane gave her her mic and the voice of Françoise Kucheida enchanted 2000 people. At the beginning of the year, a first record sees the light. Françoise Kucheida interprets great classics of the French repertory, lesser known works, and new songs written by Romain Didier, Pierre Barouh and herself. Then, within a few months, everything went very quickly. Allain Poulonge, from France Inter, is enthusiastic about her record, Françoise sings at the Hôtel du Nord in Paris, Pascal Sévran invites her to appear on La Chance aux chansons, and the record is awarded the prize of l'Académie Charles-Cros. Françoise Kucheida, the former schoolteacher, takes all the beautiful things happening to her in stride. "If tomorrow the dram ends, she confides, I will have no regrets. All this happiness I've known can never be taken away from me. A happiness which her voices knows how to share so well...

Télérama