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2 Paris News. March 2t, Music Robbie Nevil makes suprises himself by making "C'est la Vie" his first hit NEW YORK (AP) No one expected Robbie Nevil's first single, "C'est La Vie," to take off like a high-powered rocket not even the singer-songwriter himself. But it did, and Nevil is still in a state of wonder. "What I always wanted," he said, "is for my works to walk before me. Instead of having to say, 'I'm Robbie Nevil and I wrote which you may not have heard of, now there's something I did that might walk in before me.

That's what I always wanted." Nevil, who lives in North Hollywood, with his wife, Karen, was recently in New York to do promotion for his rock-pop- rhythm 'n' blues LP, "Robbie Nevil." His label, Manhattan Records, threw a party, which is rare these days in the record business. His second single, "Dominoes," is climbing nearly as fast as "C'est La Vie." It was No. 40 with a bullet on March 14, its fourth week on the Cashbox best-selling singles chart. "C'est La Vie" had been No. 3 for three weeks in January.

The album reached No. 34 in mid-February. Nevii doesn't know why everything happened so fast. "I don't know. I guess it's because I wanted it so much when I was a kid," he said.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, he long wanted to be a recording artist after being known in the business for his songwriting. "When I was 13 to 16 I was into fusion," the 25-year-old artist said. "I was into the dexterity, speed and musicianship of all the players. That's the kind of music I was writing. When I was 161 made a tape.

Rick Shoemaker at ABC Music said he couldn't get any cuts with it but he wanted to teach me song structure. I started writing pop songs instead of fusion. "I tried taking tapes around to record companies. I didn't realize, but I was gaining credibility. Record companies said, 'I like your band but I don't hear the I had a bunch of 'almosts' to paper my wall with.

I signed with MCA Music, signed by the same guy who taught me to write songs." That was 2 years ago. Eddie Kendricks, formerly of the Temptations, became the first artist to record one of Nevil's songs, "Surprise Attack." "I had something tangible," Nevil said. "It was a record and no one could take that away. That was really, really pleasing to me." Things started to roll for the young songwriter The Pointer Sisters, Sheena Easton, Vanity, El DeBarge and Al Jarreau recorded his tunes. The Pointers put his "Just a Little Closer" on "U.S.A.

for Africa," which he also has on his LP. Nevil does session guitar work and played a solo on the new Pointer Sisters album. He did some vocals as well. "But by the time I was getting seriously into writing, I wasn't doing as many sessions," he said. "At a certain point it becomes a matter of priorities.

Writing in the long run was more important for me. "A lot of session players get tired of playing on hits and making them hits. Sometimes I thought I made a record a lot better. When I get involved in music I want to get completely involved." He recently co-produced one of his songs with Alison Moyet, "Work for Someone." It's the side of her new single, released in England. WORKING COUPLE John and Johanna Hall are husband and wife, as well as frequent song co-composers.

John is a member of the pop group Orleans and he and Johanna co-wrote the band's two biggest hits, "Still the One" and "Dance With Me." (AP Laserphoto) Orleans pop music made up by husband and wife team NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) John Hall doesn't have to make a telephone call or go to the office to discuss a song with his frequent co- composer because she's his wife, Johanna. "You can turn over on your pillow and say, 'About that line in the bridge. Hall said. Hall is a member of the pop group, Orleans, and he and his wife co-wrote the band's two biggest hits, "Still the One" and "Dance With Me." Johanna wrote the lyrics on an envelope at the suggestion of a friend who said more songs were needed encouraging couples to stay together.

"We got a lot of nice letters," she recalled. "It was a positive song." "It had a happy ending and it was an summertime record," John said. The 1976 hit, besides doing well on the charts, also was used by ABC-TV as its promotional song for network programming. John, who concentrates on writing melodies, also has written the song "Power" on the "No Nukes" album done by James Taylor, Jackson Browne and others. He and fellow Orleans member Larry Hoppen wrote "Juliet," an Oak Ridge Boys' hit last May, and he and country star Steve Wariner wrote Wariner's No.

1 1986 song, "You Can Dream of Me." "I become a channel," John said in describing his songwriting. "How? You sit and practice. You work." Other times, he said, "I hear songs in my mind at night or when I first wake up." Primarily a guitarist, John Hall studied classical piano for 11 years and also plays French horn, drums, banjo and mandolin. "He comes up with melodies because he's classically trained and grounded in theory," Johanna said. Rocker star wonders who could want more NASHVILLE, Tenn.

(AP) British musician Ray Placke earns money doing what he loves: playing the guitar. "Who could ask for more?" says Flacke, who recently made a 45-minute video on how to play the guitar. He's also one of the top sessions players in Nashville. The 38-year-old guitarist, known for his pounding rhythms and staccato solos on electric guitar, played for three years in the touring band of country star Ricky Skaggs. He performed on such Skaggs records as "Heartbroke," "Highway 40 Blues," "Uncle Pen" and "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'." For the past two years, he has been a studio musician playing on such songs as "Love at the Five and Dime," a Top 5 hit on the coun- try charts in July for Kathy Mattea.

He also played on Emmylou Harris' album, "The Ballad of Sally Rose." Flacke's new tape sells for $49.95. "It's teaching someone's style and getting them to expound on that," he said. "You can see how they are going about it and rewind the tape or use the freeze frame." He had no such instruction when he grew up in Bognor Regis on the south English coast near Brighton. He taught himself to play at age 11. He played rock 'n' roll throughout England and Germany before deciding to move to Nashville in 1978.

He describes his current style as "country music with some guts to it." One of his favorite songs is "Let It Be," co-written by the late John Lennon and Paul McCartney. "It's almost a classical, liturgical melody," Hall said. "It implies more than it states outright. There are religious overtones in a vaeue way." Johanna regards the old pop song, "When a Man Loves a Woman," as one of the best ever. "It's stately, dignified, classical in its sound, yet deeply emotional.

It makes me cry whenever I hear it she said. Johanna Hall is a former music critic who tried songwriting at the insistence of the late Janis Joplin. The two became friends when Johanna wrote favorable reviews about Joplin's music early in the singer's solo career. "She was the impetus," Johanna said. "She'd come over and hang out.

She told us to write her a song." They wrote "Half Moon," which was the side of Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee." Orleans formed in 1972 in Woodstock, N.Y., where the Halls still live. Hall left the band in 1977 because he no longer felt creative in the environment. "The thing that excites me is exploration," he said. He rejoined the band two years ago. The group is signed to MCA Records and has an album out, "Grown Up Children." "We opened our mouths and out came that sound," Hall said.

"It was there all the time. We'd just forgotten how much fun it was." Wariner and Hall co-wrote one of the songs on the album, "Language of Love," and Wariner chipped in on the vocals. Chet Atkins, "Mr. Guitar," plays classical guitar on tune, "Circles." Country star Ricky Skaggs plays fiddle and mandolin for the song, "On Hold," and sings and plays acoustic guitar on the LP's title cut. The Halls wrote the first single for the reunited group, "Lady Liberty," a tribute to the Statue of Liberty.

"When I come back from my next trip Italy, Germany and London they say I'll have some time for writing. If I write a song and I think it's going to be a hit, my priority is going to be to keep it for myself. The one with Alison I knew wasn't the type of thing I would do." Nevil has two brothers: Chris is in radio sales promotion in El Paso; Alex, an actor, had a bit part in the movie. "Legal Eagles." Their father, Charles, was a child actor, playing Junior on radio's "Dick Tracy." Their parents met at college when their mother, Irene, was in a play he was directing. She was born in the Soviet Union, and moved to Germany, France, Switzerland and the United States, studied classical piano and speaks many languages.

They now work in exporting Nevil and his wife are thinking of moving to San Francisco. "Her family and friends are in that area If the artist thing keeps on taking off, it might be something that could keep things a little bit more normal. I'm away a lot of the time." NEVIL'S FIRST BIG HIT Robbie Nevil says neither he a dy se ex ected hi very first single, "C'est la Vie," to take oti like a high-powered rocket. But, it certainly did and he says' with wonder, "I've been around the world in five weeks "(APt Laserphoto) Beauvior goes from country to punk to have solo career By LARRY McSHANE Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) Jean Beauvoir spent more than a decade working behind somebody else in a variety of bands, playing everything from oldies to new wave. So it was important to the onetime bassist for the Plasmatics and the Disciples of Soul that his first solo album sound stand apart from his earlier work.

Thus, Beauvoir made "Drums Along the Mohawk" a one-man show. "I had planned to bring in people originally, but then I just found it was easier to do it myself," said pTayeiTall tHe instruments and wrote, produced and arranged the album. "When you've got other people, they're interested in their own thing the drummer wants to hear a lot of fills, the guitar player wants a lot of solos. It was so important to me to just think of each song rather than the overall album. I was able to be more objective." The result was his debut record, recorded in Sweden and New York, which yielded the Top 40 hit, "Feel the Heat," from the movie "Cobra." For Beauvoir, the album was the result of his experiences through a dozen years of playing and touring in bands.

"This record it's almost like a hidden diary in a way," Beauvoir said in a recent interview. "It's a way for you to put away experiences and thoughts you had. and preserve them on vinyl." Beauvoir, though just 25, has plenty of experiences to call upon. At 14, he was touring the country in the backup band for veteran rocker Gary U.S. Bonds.

While still in his teens, Beauvoir brought his spiky, bleached white Mohawk hairdo to the Plasmatics, the shock 'n' roll show which featured lead singer Wendy 0. Williams wielding a chainsaw and setting off explosives on stage. Convinced the Plasmatics were heading in the wrong way, Beauvoir left after three years and went to Bonds for help in landing a record deal. Bonds was working on his'comeback record with Bruce Springsteen and sidekick Steve Van Zandt at the time; Van Zandt heard several Beauvoir demos, the pair got 'together, and the bassist joined Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. "I didn't want to play in any bands after I left the Plasmatics, but with Steven it was a different thing.

It was so loose, and we got along so well. And itseemed to give me a certain musical credibility which being with the Plasmatics was definitely lacking," said Beauvoir, shaking his head and laughing. Playing with Van Zandt forced Beauvoir to delay his planned solo career for about three years, but it didn't halt his songwriting. Beauvoir wrote songs with friend Paul Stanley for KISS, for Nona Hendryx and for John Waite; he IHHH 1:00 3:00 5:00 7:00 9:00 Week Nights 7:00 9:00 also co-wrote and produced Ramones' vehement anti-Reagan single, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg." "I've never really been much of" a political writer that was an exception," said Beauvoir. "I'm with a different band, I'm writing witti'- somebody, and I'm trying to get across what they want to gei' across.

Steven's very political. I think we need those elements in music business, but I try to write about things a little more basic." Beauvoir, after working alone oh the songs for about six allowed his label, 1 Columbia" Records, to pick the first 1 They arrived oh' rocker which Sylvester Stallone" heard and selected for the soundtrack of his summer flop, "Cobra." "I was a little nervous about' that, because on a soundtrack especially with someone Stallone I love his movies, but-' he's so powerful that he can just take you, live Survivor, and you get stuck in the soundtrack Beauvoir said. With a solo record under his belt," Beauvoir will finish touring the. United States as the opening act for the Eurythmics before heading, back to Sweden to start work on his second record. After taking advice from just about everyone on how to make "Drums Along the Mohawk," Beauvoir knows just what he'll do in making the follow- up.

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