\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \n <\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/daytondailynews.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/8\/82\/8820cc9f-ed6f-5cdd-bb8a-179b7558e0ba\/6a1f24d712223.image.jpg?resize=200%2C201\")
\n <\/div><\/div> <\/p>\n The cover of Claudine Longet\u2019s debut album from 1967. Longet was a French singer whose beauty and winsome charm hid some very ugly secrets. CONTRIBUTED<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In the late \u201860s easy listening music was dominated by two different strains: Brazilian and French. The Brazilian sound was popular from the Stan Getz Bossa nova records and Sergio Mendes. The French from the Swingle Singers, Michel LeGrand and Claudine Longet.<\/p>\n Longet is forgotten today, but the actress-singer was once a budding celebrity thanks to seven albums she made from 1967-1972. She was in a Peter Sellers movie during that time and worked for A&M records, also home to Sergio Mendes.<\/p>\n Longet married the two styles by singing French songs and Brazilian songs (in Portuguese and English). Mostly she sang cover versions of pop rock tunes, and it\u2019s not what she sings but how that makes her worth hearing.<\/p>\n Her style could be called tentative, almost embarrassed. All Music Guide critic Stewart Mason called it \u201cwispy, little girl vocals.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, she was pathetic in a good way. Listen to \u201cThe End of the World\u201d and you\u2019ll fight the urge to hand her some chicken soup and a handkerchief.<\/p>\n She had difficulty pronouncing her r\u2019s. In her mouth \u201ccream of the crop\u201d became \u201ccweam of da cwop.\u201d Imagine Elmer Fudd as a French pixie and you get the idea.<\/p>\n She was best with her native tongue. \u201cA Man and a Woman\u201d and \u201cLet It Be Me (Je T\u2019Appartiens),\u201d for example, gave no hint of her impediment.<\/p>\n Not that it was bad. In fact, it was endearing. She was the female Rod McKuen \u2014 women weren\u2019t threatened by her and men wanted to save her. The fact that she never sang McKuen\u2019s songs was a missed opportunity. He\u2019s one of the few musicians she didn\u2019t cover; her album credits reads like a who\u2019s-who of the era.<\/p>\n Including Mick Jagger and Keith Richard. \u201cHer relaxed bongos and slide guitar version of \u2018Let\u2019s Spend the Night Together\u2019 is a real easy pop gem,\u201d according to critic Tim Sendra.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one way to change rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. So is making \u201cWhen I\u2019m Sixty-Four\u201d a beer garden sing-along. I know, but trust me \u2014 it works better than you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n In fact, all those old A&M records sound amazing, thanks to engineer Bruce Botnick and arranger Nick De Caro. They had a light touch, supporting the lead singer without being overwhelming.<\/p>\n Check out Longet\u2019s \u201cCreators of Rain,\u201d with its gentle flute and guitars, or \u201cManha de Carnaval,\u201d with its tasteful trumpet \u2014 no solos allowed \u2014 or \u201cA Man and a Woman\u201d and her suavely anonymous male partner.<\/p>\n \u201cTu as Beau Sorire,\u201d with its gorgeous melody, sounds suspiciously like \u201cJean\u201d two years before \u201cJean.\u201d Maybe McKuen was taking notes on her.<\/p>\n \u201cMan in a Raincoat\u201d is one of her best with its strings, Getz-type saxophone and her whispery delivery. She\u2019s abandoned by a conman who steals more than money and the song\u2019s beauty conflicts with ugly reality.<\/p>\n Just like her.<\/p>\n Stewart Mason called hers a \u201cpleasantly insubstantial persona,\u201d and he\u2019s not wrong. Claudine was less a person than a product. Her audience never got a sense of the woman behind the gauzy romanticism.<\/p>\n That might have been a good thing. In March of 1976, Claudine Longet killed her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir \u201cSpider\u201d Sabich, in Aspen, Colorado. She shot him twice while he was brushing his teeth. According to writer Robin Bougie, Sabich was done with her and she couldn\u2019t accept it.<\/p>\n Longet\u2019s ex-husband, singer Andy Williams, paid her legal defense. His money was well spent. She was drunk and high on cocaine at the time. Her lawyers \u2014 Charles Weedman (L.A.) and Ron Austin (Aspen) \u2014 managed to suppress that fact.<\/p>\n They also suppressed a confession she made without a lawyer present.<\/p>\n Luckily for her, the pistol\u2019s safety was broken. She was convicted of negligent homicide in January 1977, with 30 days in prison and a $250 fine.<\/p>\n Ron Austin then divorced his wife and eventually married Longet, who quietly settled out of court with Sabich\u2019s family. The couple lived a few miles away from the crime scene.<\/p>\n Longet and Williams had been friends of Robert F. Kennedy, and rumors persisted that Williams asked Ethel Kennedy, RFK\u2019s widow, to apply political pressure for their children\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n It\u2019s plausible. An SNL skit called \u201cThe Claudine Longet Invitational Ski Championship\u201d aired once in 1976 before Lorne Michaels issued an apology and canned the footage. The Rolling Stones song \u201cClaudine\u201d was delayed from Some Girls (1978) \u2014 for 33 years.<\/p>\n Andy Williams\u2019 influence protected Claudine from all consequences but one \u2014 the murder destroyed her career.<\/p>\n Both are unfortunate. She had talent, and her records are worth your time, especially \u201cClaudine,\u201d \u201cThe Look of Love\u201d (both 1967) and \u201cColours\u201d (1968).<\/p>\n Claudine Longet died three weeks ago at age 84.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brian Hess<\/p>\n 69c3cdabec87b.image.jpg<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.daytondailynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The cover of Claudine Longet\u2019s debut album from 1967. Longet was a French singer whose beauty and winsome charm hid some very ugly secrets. CONTRIBUTED In the late \u201860s easy listening music was dominated by two different strains: Brazilian and French. The Brazilian sound was popular from the Stan Getz Bossa nova records and Sergio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2446068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2446067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Forgotten-Record-Review-Claudine-Longet-Entertainment-News-Dayton.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2446069,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446067\/revisions\/2446069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2446068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"69c3cdabec87b.image.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/daytondailynews.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/3\/60\/360f415e-8fbe-547c-9d39-d9ec4033aa5f\/69f109b9f2360.image.jpg?resize=150%2C200)
\n <\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/daytondailynews.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/3\/60\/360f415e-8fbe-547c-9d39-d9ec4033aa5f\/69f109b9f2360.image.jpg?resize=200%2C267\")
\n <\/div><\/div>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n