Mike Brant

Moshe Michaël Brand, better known as Mike Brant, was an Israeli singer born in Cyprus in 1947. He was the eldest son of a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camps and a Polish resistance fighter. While trying to flee from Poland to Israel, the Brand couple were arrested and transported to a refugee camp in Famagusta on the island of Cyprus where the young Moshe Michael was born. The same year, however, the couple managed to reach Haifa in Israel. Anxious by nature, the little boy didn't say a single word until he was 5 years old, but when he finally opened his mouth, his parents realized that he had a real predisposition for singing. He then joined the school choir and formed a group with his younger brother who played the accordion. The duo performed in the city's major hotels and quickly gained a certain notoriety. With his stentorian voice, the young Moshe took up the American standards of his favourite singers: Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra... At the age of 20, shortly after his father's death, Moshe met Jonathan Karmon, a great name in Israeli music hall and joined his troupe for a two-year tour in South Africa and the United States. Moshé Michaël Brand then became Mike Brant. During a performance in a nightclub in Tehran, Mike Brant is spotted by Sylvie Vartan and Carlos. They introduced him to Jean Renard, Eddy Mitchell's composer, and Johnny Hallyday, who immediately wrote the famous "Laissez-moi t'aimer". The song was a huge hit and the singer with the 'Latin lover' look became the darling of the French public. In 1971 and despite Jean Renard's objections who did not fully appreciate his point, Mike Brant agreed to open for Dalida at The Olympia. This decision marked a turning point in his career as the two men separated on bad terms. The artist then began a collaboration with producer Charles Talar and lyricist Michel Jourdan, who wrote his greatest hit "Qui saura" in 1972. Together, they performed a series of hits: "It's my prayer" (1973), "Just a tear" (1974), "That's how I love you" (1974)... In 1974, he changed producers again and joined forces with the sulphurous Simon Waintrob. Exhausted by the pace of his career and haunted by the trauma of the Shoah that affected his family, Mike Brand made his first suicide attempt on November 22, 1974 while jumping from the 5th floor of his hotel in Geneva. He escaped with a head injury and multiple leg fractures. The singer is said to have acted on a whim following a violent dispute with his producer who hadn't paid him the royalties he was due. In the grip of depression, the singer threw himself off the 6th floor on April 25, 1975 and his fall was fatal. He was 28 years old.