dith Piaf's Rcital 1961

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From the beginning of her career in 1935 to her death in 1963 and right up to the present, dith Piaf has been recognized as unique and iconic. She is Frances most celebrated and mythified singing star across the world. Rcital 1961 explores her most important album: the live recording of her comeback concert at the Paris Olympia on 29 December 1960, which unveiled her keynote song, Non je ne regrette rien (No Regrets). It examines the content, context and significance of the concert in relation to Piafs career, her life and her celebrity. What was so special about the performance and why did the ecstatic audiences, that night and at the subsequent performances in 1961, find it so powerful and moving The book dissects the live show, the album and the songs that feature on it, and at a deeper level their place in the invention of the public Piaf we know today asking why, more than a century after her birth and 60 years after her death, we still remember her, listen to her and commemorate her around the world.

Author Bio

David Looseley is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary French Culture at the University of Leeds, UK. He writes on the popular music, culture and cultural policy of France, including dith Piaf: A Cultural History (2015), joint winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Prize, and Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate (2003). He was contributing editor (with Diana Holmes) of Imagining the Popular in Contemporary French Culture (2013). He is Chevalier dans lOrdre des Palmes Acadmiques.