He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s as a French language interpreter of the songs of American and Canadian songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, and remained active into his nineties.

While growing up he heard jazz and American folk songs on radio broadcasts for US troops stationed at Paekākāriki and Tītahi Bay, and sang with his family at local fairs.

[1] Allwright then worked in the vineyards of Burgundy and ran a theatre group in Pernand-Vergelesses, while learning the guitar and listening to the records of American singers such as Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton and Pete Seeger.

He lived in Blois, where he worked in a psychiatric hospital, and then settled in Dieulefit where he taught English and started a children's theatre group.

The album included adaptations of songs by Guthrie and Oscar Brand as well as several by French songwriter Paul Koulak, and Allwright's own material.

and Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" ("Petites boites"), as well as his own song "Il faut que je m'en aille (Les retrouvailles)", and became popular with students during the May 68 protests.

The stress caused by the song's unexpected success led Allwright to leave his young family in France and go travelling, initially with a friend to Egypt and Ethiopia, where he spent six months in the city of Harar.

[2] In 1980 he played a series of concerts with Maxime Le Forestier, recorded on the album Enregistrement Public au Palais des Sports, with the royalties donated to children's charities.

In the 2000s, together with Sylvie Dien, he wrote new lyrics to the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", to make it a song of peace rather than of war.

[3][4] Allwright also became well known for his French lyrics adaptation "Petit Garçon" for the Christmas song "Old Toy Trains" by Roger Miller.