From the beginning of her career in 1935 to her death in 1963 and right up to the present, Edith Piaf has been recognized as unique and iconic. She is France's most celebrated and mythified singing star across the world. Recital 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 Piaf's 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.

Examines Edith Piaf's live album Recital 1961, recorded at the famous Paris Olympia, and explores why it marked the last great turning point in her career.

About the Author
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 Edith 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 l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques.

Reviews
A jewel of a little book, elegantly written and limpidly setting out how and why Piaf's artistry counted in 1961 and is still of interest to lovers of French chanson and to the academic study of popular music alike even sixty years after her death. * French Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501362101
Author David L. Looseley
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic USA
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc