If his helicopter hadn’t crashed 26 years ago, Daniel Balavoine would be 60 today

Daniel Balavoine (5 February 1952 – 14 January 1986) was a French singer and songwriter. He was hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and inspired many singers in the 1980s, such as Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Michel Berger, his closest friend. He took part in French political life, and is known for a 1980 televised verbal confrontation with François Mitterrand.

In the French music-business, Balavoine earned his own spot with both his powerful voice, his wide range and his lyrics, which were full of sadness and revolt. He was emphatic, and his songs for the most part talked about despair, pain, and death. Hope was present as a theme as well.

In the 1980s, Balavoine fell in love with Africa and started using his fame to fund the building of water wells for the Sahel. He participated in his first Paris-Dakar motor rally in 1982. Four years later, on 14 January 1986, while flying over the rally, Balavoine died, along with Thierry Sabine and three other people, when their helicopter crashed into a dune in Mali.

Here’s the man with one of his 1985 successes: