Artist Biography
With a name that sounds more like an impressionist painter, Rene Faure is actually best known for taping a particularly brilliant boogie-woogie piano solo. The recording in question was a cover version of "Honky Tonk Train Blues" by Meade "Lux" Lewis and it also seems to be the only time Faure ever recorded, at least according to discographical messiah Tom Lord and the information contained in massive collection of jazz recording sessions. The track, dating to 1940, was part of a series of pieces the Frankie Trumbauer band created for producer Eli Oberstein's Varsity label.
Another producer, Joe Davis, bought these recordings from Oberstein in the same year, releasing four of the tracks including the Faure piano foray in the type of a box set that was once referred to as a "four 78 album." The way in which Faure's masterpiece was released may have had as much to do with his obscurity as the fact of it being his only recording. The Trumbauer band is credited on the label, even though none of them play a note: the entire track is a piano solo. The man who was actually deserving of a solo label on the credit is not the same Rene Faure whose career in the French film industry began as an actor in the '50s. ~ Eugene Chadbourne
Hometown
Paris
Genre
Blues