1 fille & 4 types

The album was released on October 13, 2003 in Europe and on October 14 in Canada.

Artistic director Jean-Jacques Goldman has come up this time with an idea that completely won over the diva: surround her with three different writer-composers who have made their mark on the French music scene, Jacques Veneruso, Erick Benzi and master guitarist Gildas Arzel. The voice of these incomparable artists accompanies Celine's performance throughout the album, produced by Benzi and guided by Goldman from start to finish.

The songs were recorded during October 8-11, 2002 in Paris and during May 2-11, 2003 in Las Vegas.

Of course we had pleasure before, but there I think we got more, because I consider them as my brothers: we learnt to know each other, I appreciate what they do for me, but it is more than this, it is letting pleasure come above all of this. It has been the album of pleasure! - Celine Dion

Tout l'or des hommes

"Of course I'm a passionate girl and the people around me is very important, Celine reveals. For exemple, this is what the song Tout l'or des hommes says. Everything I do, traveling round the world, having money, maybe is important, but the main point is having the people you love around you. There is always a part of me which well stands rooted to the spot. My head floats in the clouds but my feet well stand rooted to the earth! 'All the gold in the world, is nothing if you are far from me - All the love in the world is not worth anything anymore, so above all don't change', I love you just like this, I love you for your real worthes."
"It is a song, Jacques Veneruso tells, which came out when I thought about her, yes she is an international star, she have all what we call wealth, but the most important is the human worth and the relation with the others."
First extract from the album 1 Fille & 4 Types, on radio since August 27, the single Tout l'or des hommes releases on October 06, 2003.
The video for Tout l'or des hommes, a road movie conceived by Céline herself, has been shot early in May 2003 in Nevada desert under Yannick Saillet's direction who had already directed the video for Zora sourit. Céline appears as a singer of a group which travels with the hapiness which their music brings them.

Ne bouge pas

"We all come from rock, the writter of the song, Gildas Arzel explains, from blues, from things we do with the guitar, so when we have the freedom to exploit that, we do it, hey!"

Tu nages

Anggun originally performed this song on her album Désirs Contraires released in 2000.

Je t'aime encore (Version française)

Céline also sang an english version of this song on her One Heart album.
"I'm near her, Jean-Jacques Goldman reveals about the studio version from the album 1 Fille & 4 Types, and I tell her sentences by sentences... so I tell her "tadadadada" and she does "tadada..." at once after... Well, its happens that then it is this voice we kept so there was a huge work to remove me, my voice, or my whisperings just before... and, if you listen well the very beginning of the song, we still hear a little bit my voice before, so this song, she sings it while she entirely discovers it!"
Note that Nadia Comaneci, whom Celine has always admired very much, appears on the videoclip, as well as Miss Quebec 2003 Marie-Andree Poulin.

Retiens-moi

Nanette Workman originally performed this song on her album Une à une released in 1996.

Je lui dirai

"Yes, Celine tells about the relation between her son Rene-Charles and this song from the album 1 Fille & 4 Types, it is about her grandfather, it also says that with the blood which runs from Orient through Rene, and with his grandfather who was a lumberjack, when we mix all of this, well, it makes a extraordinary child! It is what we think, at least I do!"
The idea of the musical theme was born on March 17, 2002, during a TV special where Jean-Jacques Goldman was invited. He performed there his lively folk dance Tournent les violons ; the host, then asked him,
Flavie Flament : If you would have to write for Celine again and with a lively folk dance, which one would it be?
Jean-Jacques Goldman : Every dance...
Celine Dion : This one, I would like to have it!
JJG : Well, ok, we will do a three-time dance... This one was a tarentella...
FF : So, the appointment is arranged!
CD : I love this! Yes! (laugh)

Mon homme

"Mon homme, Celine reveals... This is a song for Rene, this is a song for my son too!"

Des milliers de baisers

"It's good, isn't it? Incredible! Celine exclaims. What a pleasure for me! When we started in studio, I said them that, for me, it was like singing with my brothers, because in Quebec, we were singing until 3-4 am, there were ones who were playing the 'spoon', others who were taking their guitars and my mother who was saying, be careful the children, not too loud, there were others who were sleeping. We grew like that. But then putting this on an album, it is a tribute to my own family!"

On June 1st, 2003 during an interview on Cherie FM french radio,
Jean-Jacques Goldman: So we started... She came in October (2002), while I was perfoming at the Zenith (Paris); the afternoon I did some tests with her on several songs. I, I only wrote 3-4 songs and it's my friends who wrote the others, so Erick Benzi, Jacques Veneruso, Gildas Arzel... We worked together and that was great, in fact that was very pleasant to work with them, it was almost as a group, and it will in this frame of mind I can say, so it's like as if Celine was the singer of a group, we do the choirs everywhere, sometimes we sing ourselves and we recorded, we prepared all the musics, once we got the tonalities, the tempos and the songs which she wanted, which she didn't want, we all prepared here and we went to Las Vegas early in the month (May 2003), to record the voices... and now we are going to mix.

Early in May, 2003,
Celine Dion: Making a disc with Jean-Jacques and three of his friends, sure was very attractive for me... When we asked him for this album, he was so smart and so sincere to say: I wrote two albums; writting a third, I don't know if I can make another album entirely. At one time, what will he speak about? What will I sing? But he has got a concept, he's gone to look for a team, some friends of him.
Gildas Arzel: With Erick Benzi and Jacques Veneruso, we had created the band Canada, twelve years ago, and it was a real team.
Jacques Veneruso: With the band Canada, we had a song, Mourir les sirenes, which worked very well. Jean-Jacques met us in an airport and he said us: "I love what you do, we'll have to meet again". The next week, he invited us on a radio. And for fifteen years, Erick, Gildas and I have kept particular relations with him... He thought of us to collaborate on this album.
JJG: We always hear Celine singing all by herself and I, as I know her very well, I know she loves singing in choirs, sharing with others, so I already knew that she would love the idea not to be alone... I proposed them not only this album, but also the idea to sing together, to do some things more acoustic, more "guitar", very vocal... It interested them and from this moment, I asked them to propose some songs.
Erick Benzi: We found that funny, the idea to think: well, we are going to do a band with her.
GA: The artist is a little more integrated in the concept of the album, than the singer who is going to sing alone a song...
CD: I feel as I was part of a band, it's cool for me, because when you love to sing very much and you are with some guys who love that as much as you, well, it's sharing the fun!

CD: Jean-Jacques is the head of all of this.
GA: He knows rather well the personality of everyone, so he yields his own wish in the direction of what the group knows best how to do.
JJG: Of course, Gildas is the guitarist.
JV: In this project, I'm writter-compositor.
JJG: We can say that Eric is central, is to say that he really centralizes the arrangements.
CD: Everybody, every writter-compositor has his own way to see the things. I'm here to try to... "deliver the goods" as good as I can.
GA: In general, she does not very long to record, so she arrives, it is fast, we stick the songs on the wall: "this is done". We listen and we are always flabbergasted, it is unusual.
EB: When we do the first recording, we listen it and she already made the song hers and so it is a kind of dispossession of what we wrote to a new dimension, it is really amazing!

CD: It was a pleasure from start to end...
EB: Celine is touched by the grace.
GA: ... Very surprising... The lady!
JJG: She's one of the five best mondial voices.
JV: 1 Fille & 4 Types, for me, in a few words, it is: Friendship, Confidence, Simplicity, Efficacy.
CD: ... To meet Jean-Jacques and his friends, Jacques, Erick, Gildas... and to sing anew in french...

CelineDionWeb.com