Lou Deprijck is a Belgian singer and record producer born in 1946 in Lessines, Wallonia. He was a major figure in the Belgian pop scene of the 1970s and 1980s, with more than 20 million copies of his compositions sold worldwide. He is best known for having co-written with Yves Lacomblez, and for having de facto sung, the Plastic Bertrand 1977 song "Ça plane pour moi".
His first group "Liberty 6" had a complete flop in 1969 with Je suis pop. However he later found success with Two Man Sound, a Latin-pop outfit formed with Sylvain Vanholme of the Wallace Collection and Yvan Lacomblez. Two Man Sound sold over a million copies of their 1975 single Charlie Brown while the albumDisco Samba, with the eponymous song, had sales of around 1.4 million copies in Latin America. Deprijck also had a major 1978 solo success in France and Belgium with Ska/reggae song Kingston, Kingston, under the moniker Lou & The Hollywood Bananas.
In the English speaking world, Deprijck's best known hit was "Ça plane pour moi", which he recorded and sang for Plastic Bertrand, who remains generally credited for the song. In fact, Deprijck was also the "voice" of Plastic Bertrand's first four albums. In 2006, a Belgian appeal court ruled that Bertrand was the "legal performer" of the classic track. But the ruling was overturned in 2010. In the 1980s Deprijck was also the creative force behind the success of Viktor Lazlo, born Sonia Dronier, whom he met at Le Mirano nightclub in Brussels. She initially did backing vocals for "Lou & the Hollywood Bananas" before taking the name "Viktor Lazlo" from a character in 1942 filmCasablanca at Deprijck's suggestion. He produced the self-titled albumViktor Lazlo in 1987 for her, as well as the album Hot & Soul in 1989. In 1984, calling himself "Lou Van Houten", Deprijck released the album Collures with Boris Bergman under the pseudonym "Les Epatants".
Deprijck currently resides largely near Pattaya. The story of his life in Thailand was shown in the VTMTV channel documentary Vlamingen in Pattaya as part of the Belgian news programTelefacts. Life in Pattaya inspired him to rewrite the text of his most famous song Kingston, Kingston into Pattaya, Pattaya, which soon became the unofficial hymn of Pattaya.
