Vline Buggy, lyricist of Claude François and Herbert Léonard, died at 97

Beautiful! Beautiful! Belles!, For pleasure, Céline: Vline Buggy, lyricist of great names in French song, from Claude François to Herbert Léonard, died at 97, host Julien Lepers announced to AFP on Sunday, on behalf of the family.

“Vline died during the night from Friday to Saturday. It was his daughter who warned me,” said Julien Lepers, who worked with Vline Buggy for twenty years. She “was the greatest lyricist in France. I am very sad,” continued the presenter and singer who composed the music for For the Pleasure of Herbert Léonard, of which she had co-signed the lyrics. “Vline meant a lot to me when I started. I'm losing the one I started with. We co-wrote several songs. For Céline, it is the loss of her very young sister and the loss of my brother. We combined our emotions,” singer Hugues Aufray told AFP.

Blonde streak and big smile, Vline Buggy co-wrote the hit that launched the career of Claude François Belles! Beautiful! Beautiful! in 1962, an adaptation of Girls Girls Girls (Made to Love) by the Everly Brothers. Their collaboration was fruitful, with more than 70 songs (If I had a hammer in particular), and would last the singer's entire career until his sudden death in 1978. “On the evening of October 14, 1962, a little blond with a red sweater entered my life never to leave,” recounted Vline Buggy in his autobiography, published in 2018.