French rocker Johnny Hallyday, recovering from surgery in Los Angeles, will not be fit for his scheduled farewell tour next month, the singer’s insurer was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
“It is now certain that the first concerts in 2010 will not take place,” Francois Chiesa, a director with Pont Neuf insurance brokers, told the Internet edition of the Le Point news magazine.
When asked when Hallyday’s tour would go ahead, he replied: “I don’t know…we will see.”
Dr Francois Zuccarelli, one of the two clinicians sent by Hallyday’s insurers, said the musician was a lot better and that he would sing again one day.
Zuccarrelli arrived in Los Angeles with orthopaedic and trauma surgeon Yves Catonne to assess Hallyday’s condition.
“I won’t say that he is in top form, but he is quite lucid and conscious and we even joked together at his bedside, so things are a little more positive,” Zuccarelli told RTL radio.
Doctors put the 66-year-old in a drug-induced coma on Friday to help him recover more peacefully from surgery to deal with an infection, allegedly stemming from an earlier Paris operation to repair a slipped disc.
Johnny Hallyday’s producer Jean-Claude Camus has said he will make an announcement on Wednesday on the tour’s fate. Hallyday was set play 24 farewell concerts across France, starting on January 8 in the northern city of Amiens.
Though little known abroad, Hallyday is by far the most famous musician in France, with a colourful rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Known as the “French Elvis,” he has sold more than 100 million albums and played 45 major tours, selling out at stadiums.
