#14: Come To Me by France Joli

City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CFRA
Peak Month: December 1979
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #30
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Come To Me”
Lyrics: “Come To Me”

France Joly was born in 1963 in suburban Montreal. Her father was a hardware merchant and her mother was a teacher. As early as age four, she was performing for relatives lip-syncing to Barbra Streisand records while handling a skipping rope like a microphone. She appeared on a local Montreal TV variety show by age six. At age 11, she left the public school system and was home schooled by her mother. Her mother wanted her daughter to concentrate on her performing career appearing regularly in television commercials and talent shows. A mutual acquaintance suggested France meet up with musician Tony Green who she approached backstage after he had given a concert. She invited Green to be her record producer. Green did not take the 13-year-old girl seriously. Green recalled: “To get rid of her I [told] her to keep in touch.” According to one source, France Joly eventually visited Green’s home to sing for him. It is also reported that Green first heard her sing from the audience of an “end of school year show” in which she performed in the fall of 1978. Both accounts concur that Green first heard Joli singing along with a Streisand recording of “Evergreen”.

Green had written the song “Come to Me” for France Joly by the next day. By the time she was in the recording studio she got the stage name France Joli. A self-titled album, France Joli, was released in April 1979. The track “Come to Me” received a boost when Joli performed it as a last-minute replacement for Donna Summer at the Beach ’79 party held on Fire Island on July 7, 1979, which was attended by 5,000 gay men. At the time France Joli was 16-years-old.

“Come To Me” is a song written by Tony Green (born Antonio DiVerdis-Mazzone in Montréal). He is a producer, owner of record label TGO, and songwriter. His first song that was recorded was in 1969, “Les Filles D’Aujourd’hui” by Quebecois artist Alain. Australian band Jigsaw recorded Green’s “To Love Means To Be Free” in 1970. Green went on to produce and write songs for dozens of emerging disco acts.

“Come To Me” is a song inviting someone who is feeling “alone and down.” The singer promises to be a shelter from the storm.

“Come To Me” peaked at #1 in Ottawa, and Los Angeles, #2 in Boston, #3 in Fort Lauderdale, Montreal, and Sherbrooke (PQ), #5 in New York City, and Denver, #6 in Pittson (PA), Bangor (ME), and Providence (RI), #8 in San Bernardino (CA), #9 in New Haven (CT), and Buffalo, and #10 in Lethbridge (AB). The single topped the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for from September 22 to October 6, 1979. It reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Joli made her network television debut on October 26, 1979, broadcast of The Midnight Special, and she co-hosted the December 7 episode. She also appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, Dinah and Friends, and a Bob Hope TV Special. 

1980 saw the release of Joli’s second album Tonight, with the ballad “This Time (I’m Giving All I’ve Got)” released as a single bubbling under for two weeks peaking at #103. This attempt to curry favor in the mainstream market was unsuccessful with Joli receiving support only in the dance club market, where the tracks “The Heart to Break the Heart” and “Feel Like Dancing” achieved a joint position of  #3: Tonight was ranked on the Billboard album chart at #175.

In 1981 “Gonna Get Over You” climbed to #2 for two weeks on the Billboard dance club charts. Though her third studio album, Now, was a commercial flop. Still Joli, as evidenced by her opening for the Commodores during their American tour of 1981, was still viewed as having star potential. She left the dance music-oriented Prelude label for Epic Records.

However, both Attitude (1983) and Witch of Love (1985) got little traction. In 1983, “Girl in the 80’s” stalled as a Billboard Dance Club chart hit at #46. And “Does He Dance” from the second Epic album release peaked at #40 on the Dance Club chart.

She won the “Most Outstanding Performance Award” at the 1984 “World Popular Song Festival” in Tokyo.

However, the commercial failure of both of her Epic album releases led to the label dropping Joli. She spent the next ten years with her career focused on performing rather than recording.

In 1997, Joli reconnected with Tony Green and released the single “Touch”. It climbed to #24 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco Club Play chart. The single was included on her 1998 album If You Love Me.

Joli’s “Come to Me” is featured in When Ocean Meets Sky (2003), a documentary detailing the 50-year history of the Fire Island Pines community. The film – which had its television premiere on June 10, 2006 – includes much previously unseen archival footage, but Joli’s July 1979 performance of “Come to Me” is presented only in still photographs with musical background, suggesting no footage of that event exists. The sequence included interviews with those who recall Joli’s 1979 performance on Fire Island.

In 2013, the Montreal Gazette had a feature about France Joli. Disco Montreal was being headlined by Joli, which was a Disco Party benefiting West Island Community Shares, which funds various local charities. The April 20 benefit was held at the Pointe Claire Holiday Inn, whose main ballroom was transformed into a 1970s disco.

Speaking to the Montreal Gazette, Joli said in 2013, “My head was spinning, but my Mom kept me grounded. I didn’t go crazy on drugs, I didn’t blow my money – but then again, what money? I’m not any different than any other artist from back then. Look at all those artists from the 70s and early 80s ­– and I perform with them all the time – nobody lives in a palace,” Joli says. “But it’s okay because we have longevity. We’re not filthy rich, but we’re still making a living.”

“I didn’t do a lot of shows in Montreal, my career [is still] mostly based out of the United States, and this will be my first concert in Montreal in 20 years!” Joli sang the Canadian national anthem to kick off Canadian Appreciation Month on February 1, 2013 in Dallas, Texas. In January 2013, she finished a stint co-starring in the Off-Broadway play My Big Gay Italian Wedding at St. Luke’s Theater in NYC, and continues to perform regularly right across the USA, often at gay events like the Carnival Parade in Provincetown last summer and Southern Decadence in New Orleans on Labor Day Weekend 2012.

Having turned 62 in 2025, France Joli continues to perform.

November 14, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
“The triumphant Montreal homecoming of 1970s disco queen and Fire Island gay icon France Joli,” Montreal Gazette, April 17, 2013.

CFRA 580-AM Ottawa Top Ten | December 7, 1979