Hugues Aufray's new album is called Autoportrait. And indeed, the album cover features the artist's almost Christ-like face, painted on two reclaimed wooden planks in 1999. The twelve songs on the album do indeed highlight the salient traits generally attributed to the eternal Troubadour: a search for our roots, and a particular attention to the "little people," especially those who toiled tirelessly to allow others to settle down and thrive in the famous American Way of Life.
The album opens with the only true contract that binds the rich and the poor: the question of money: in "Paie-moi ce que tu m’dois," a negro spiritual, the sailor demands that his captain settle the arrears owed to him. The heroic John Henry – an exemplary rail layer who pays with his life to remind us that "man is not a robot"… the unfortunate "Swagman," a transient worker, offers us a share of "La Mathilda"… and couldn't that old gambler Dan Tucker be a self-portrait? We also wander through styles and encounter the figures of those who have always brought them to life for our ears: Lead Belly, Josh White, The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, and Mississippi John Hurt… Hugues concludes the album with a hopeful "Hasta Luego" that heralds a new departure for the singer on the road, a sign of fraternity in the setting sun. Because this album of wind, sea, river, and land so precisely paints the portrait of the singer that we are never mistaken: we have indeed just conversed with Hugues Aufray, the man with soles of storm.
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