Sheila

Born Annie Chancel in 1945 in Créteil, near Paris, Sheila made her mark in the early 1960s on the yéyé scene and in French pop with a string of 45 rpm singles and albums such as “Le sifflet des copains” (1963) and “Écoute ce disque” (1964). Aimed at a teenage audience, she scored numerous popular hits and became a fixture on French television, while evolving her image over the decades. Around the turn of the 1970s her repertoire broadened into a more adult, danceable pop, and she then embraced disco under the name Sheila & B. Devotion, collaborating notably with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic on the album “King of the World” (1980), which leaned toward funk and dance. In the 1980s the singer returned to francophone pop and variety with synth-pop–oriented albums, while continuing frequent stage and television appearances. Over time Sheila developed a repertoire combining her 1960s and 1970s hits, her English-language disco productions and more recent material, allowing her to alternate between concert halls, themed tours and reissue projects while maintaining a close link to the history of French popular song.