The following is a slightly adapted version of the text I wrote for the Wikipedia in July 2003 [1]. I kept most of the awkward English. Interestingly, bits of it have survived in the version of today.
Jacques Brel was a Belgian author-composer with such a strong power of expression in his lyrics that many consider him a poet as well. He also had some minor activity as an actor and director. He was born in Schaarbeek, Belgium, a small city north of Brussels.
In the early 1950s he went to Paris, writing music and singing in the city cabarets and music-halls where on stage he expressed his songs with grand physical gestures. By 1956 he was touring Europe and he recorded the song Quand on n'a que l'amour that brought him his first major recognition.
His thematics covers almost all aspects of whatever fits to artistic expression, especially about love (Je t'aime, Litanies pour un retour, Dulcinéa), society (Les singes, Les bourgeois, Jaurès) and spiritual concerns (Le bon Dieu, Dites, si c'était vrai, Fernand). No style constrains him entirely. He was as efficient in funny compositions (Les bonbons, Le lion, Comment tuer l'amant de sa femme...) as in heart-breaking texts (Voir un ami pleurer, Fils de..., Jojo). His acute perception made him an innovative and creative painter of the daily life with rare poetic easiness. He was indeed a master in poetic constructs. He had both intelligence of striking and stunningly simple wordings and very picturial and meaningful vocabulary. None other like him could put as much novelty and meaning in a sentence from a few words of common use. He had also a bright sense of metaphors, as in Je suis un soir d'été where the narrator is a summer's evening telling what he observes as he falls on a city. Although a master with lyrics, also his musical themes were of the first standard and also here no style captures him entirely. He composed both rythmic, lively and captivating tunes (L'aventure, Rosa, Au printemps) as well as sad and solemn songs (La quête, J'en appelle, Pourquoi faut-il que les hommes s'ennuient?)
He is widely recognized in French-speaking countries as among the best composers of all times in this language.
He played in the musical l'homme de la Mancha that he also directed and appeared in films without however displaying abilities of any comparison with his musical performances. For twenty years he was a major star gaining recognition beyong French audiences. In 1973 he retreated to French Polynesia, remaining there until 1977 when he returned to Paris and recorded his final album.
Jacques Brel died of lung cancer and was buried in the Altuona Cemetery, Altuona, Hiva-Oa, Iles Marquises, French Polynesia only a few yards away from painter Paul Gauguin.
If you don't know Brel, those are a few random links that should give you an idea... [2], [3], [4] and [5] or [6].