As I was checking out the French Amazon site and the top sellers in the CD category, I found it interesting that the top selling CD for the last two months is an Italian singer and the highest-ranking French singer is Grégory Lemarchal, currently at number 7 with Rêves.  To tell you the truth, I had never heard about this artist, so I decided to look him up.  Grégory died of complications from cystic fibrosis (mucoviscidose) at just 24 years old at the height of his success and maybe because I have a very young nephew who has been diagnosed with this disease, I particularly felt that I must tell the readers of this blog about this French singer.

Born on May 13, 1983 in La Tronche, Isère in southeastern France, Grégory was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was only twenty months old.  Cystic fibrosis is a hereditary disease that affects the lungs and digestive system for which to date there is no cure.  By 12 years old, Grégory clearly had a passion for music and dance, winning a major dance competition.  In 1998, he unsuccessfully tried out for the French music reality show Graines de stars.  He participated in the lead role in a musical comedy entitled Adam and Eve in May 2003 which was performed on stage at Le Zénith in Paris.  In 2004, he became one of the contestants of the reality show Star Academy and won.  He went on to sell over a million albums including his first album entitled Je deviens moi which debuted at number one and won the NRJ Award in January 2006 for Breakthrough Artist of the Year before announcing in 2007 that his health was getting worse.  He died on April 30, 2007 while on the waiting list for a lung transplant.  The profits from his two posthumous albums La Voix d’un ange and Rêves go to the Association Grégory Lemarchal which raises money for cystic fibrosis research and awareness.  Go to that website to read more about him and listen to some of his songs.

His official site is http://gregorylemarchal.artiste.universalmusic.fr/ and his fan club site is http://www.just-gregory.net

You can find more information about cystic fibrosis here.