[1] At home, her mother played piano but Francesca was passionate for French literature while learning traditional songs (Schubert, Debussy...).

From 1958 Solleville gave up lyrical songs to perform her preferred composers in the cabarets of the Rive-Gauche of Paris.

Influenced by Germaine Montéro and encouraged by Léo Ferré, she was directed by Jacques Douai to the record company Boîte à musique.

In May 1962, Solleville released her first 10" album, intitulé Récital n°1, where she sange the poets Paul Fort (La Marine, set to music by Georges Brassens), Charles Baudelaire, Louis Aragon and Jean Ferrat (J'entends, j'entends).

In the 1960s, she recorded the songs of Hélène Martin, Georges Coulonges, Yani Spanos, Philippe-Gérard, Serge Rezvani, and the poems of Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Genet.

Véronique Sauger's book, Portraits croisés, Francesca Solleville, Allain Leprest (Ed.