Biography
Patrick Verbeke, born on 13 April 1949 in Caen, Calvados, and died on 22 August 2021 in Montrouge, was a French blues guitarist, composer and singer. He helped to raise the profile of the blues in France, alongside Benoît Blue Boy, Bill Deraime and Paul Personne.
Patrick Verbeke first played in bands – L’Indescriptible chaos rampant in 1967, Civilization in 1970, Tribu in 1972, Magnum in 1975 with Alan Jack, and Bistrock in 1979 with Jacky Chalard – before going on to record under his own name in English and French from the 1980s onwards. The band Bistrock notably recorded covers of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’ and J.J. Cale’s ‘Cocaine’, titled ‘L'École du rock’n’roll’ and ‘Coquine’ respectively.
As a studio musician, he also accompanied numerous artists on guitar (electric or acoustic), including Sonny Fischer on the album Texas Rockabilly Tear Up,… David McNeil, Valérie Lagrange, William Sheller, Yves Montand, and the collective project Autour du Blues, amongst others.
For five years (1993–1998), Verbeke hosted a radio programme every Saturday evening on Europe 1, De quoi j'vais m'plaindre (named after one of his songs), which he then presented in 2007–2008 on the web radio station W3 Blues Radio. He also performs as part of the ‘Autour du Blues’ project, accompanied – depending on their availability – by numerous musicians with varying degrees of blues influence (Michael Jones, Francis Cabrel, Paul Personne, Claude Engel, Beverly Jo Scott, etc.).
His son, Steve Verbeke, is also a musician (harmonica player and singer).
Based on Wikipedia (in French), translation DeepL (CC BY-SA licence)
1Songs
| Song | Year | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Moddy Waters | 1996 |
|