Very Best of Edith Piaf: 40 Greatest Hits

Edith Piaf - Very Best of Edith Piaf: 40 Greatest Hits

Very Best of Edith Piaf: 40 Greatest Hits
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Edith Piaf
Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2007-06-11
Music Label: Mastersong
Soundtracks:
  1. La Vie En Rose
  2. Padam Padam
  3. Plus Bleu Que Tex Yeux
  4. Elle A Dit
  5. Hymme A L'amour
  6. La Valse De L'amour
  7. Monsieur Et Madame
  8. Chante Moi
  9. J'ai Danse Avec L'amour
  10. Le Fanion De La Legion
  11. Les Momes De La Cloche
  12. La Java De Cezigue
  13. L'etranger
  14. Mon Apero
  15. Reste
  16. Les Hiboux
  17. J'suis Mordue
  18. Un Jeune Homme Chantait
  19. Mon Legionnaire
  20. C'est Lui Que Coeur A Choisi
  21. Elle Frequentait La Rue Pigalle
  22. C'etait Une Histoire D'amour
  23. L'accordeoniste
  24. Les Trois Cloches
  25. Notre Dame De Paris
  26. Il Y Avait
  27. Du Matin Jusqu'au Soir
  28. Demain (Il Fera Jour)
  29. L'homme Que J'aimerai
  30. Je T'ai Dans La Peau
  31. Le Chevalier De Paris
  32. C'est Un Gars
  33. Si, Si, Si, Si
  34. C'est Toi
  35. Telegramme
  36. Le Disque Use

Free Music Notes for Very Best of Edith Piaf: 40 Greatest Hits

Free Music Review: Revelatory collection: No regrets despite being shorted 4 songs (including "Je Ne Regrette")
Hit: 5 Stars

I've heard Edith Piaf off and on through the years and pretty much cast a deaf ear. Her music seemed too remote from the African-American tradition of American Popular Song, whose composers and exponents--Berlin, Kern, Arlen, Gershwin, Rodgers, Crosby, Mercer--created a unique art as a result, primarily, of being drawn to "black" music. (Make no mistake about it: the distinctiveness of "classic" American popular song, or the so-called Great American Songbook, is not its European but its African-American indebtedness.) But the recent attention Piaf has received (I haven't seen the movie) led me to the realization I didn't even have a recording by her. This new two-disc release of 36 tunes (where did Amazon come up with 40?) seemed like the best bet to get to know her better (but don't expect any written documentation whatsoever). By the end of the first disc I was no longer noticing, let alone bothered by, that French Chanteuse style with the fast-moving vibrato that used to turn me off right away. The woman's spirit simply cuts through any superficial analysis of style, or consideration of cultural differences.

Perhaps hearing Shirley Horn's version of Hymne a L'Amour (from "Here's to Life") is what helped bridge the cultural distance for me, but the present remarkable collection leaves no doubt that this petite powerhouse was packed with plenty, plenty soul. What she offers is universal--on a level with Billie and Judy, maybe better in some respects. There's not simply talent, strength, vulnerability, tragedy, passion, great energy and (unrelenting) intensity here--but unmistakable courage, and not limited to the singer but as a prerequisite to living life.

She may lack Lady Day's playfulness and understated subtlety (which sadly was reduced to bathetic spectacle during the last 5-6 years); she doesn't encompass all of vaudeville and play to the back row like Judy (who really didn't swing much more than the Little Sparrow), but she possesses more than smallness combined with power (otherwise, Kay Starr should be considered of the same magnitude). With every note that she sings she celebrates life--a frequent downer, as she acknowledges--like few other singers who come to mind. She sings as much "blues" as Billie (listen to J'ai Danse Avec L'amour); the drama of Garland is present in every song--at times, close to an authoritative, narrative recitative but elsewhere a soaring, lyrical line (Chante Moi) or contemporary lieder (L'etranger). The clarity of her diction is enough to spur you to bone up on your French.

[Postscript on Piaf's "self-destructiveness." I see much reference to this, including harsh judgments of Piaf (at least it's a change of pace from fixating on Billie, Judy, Cole Porter, Larry Hart, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Bud Powell, Chet Baker, and a hundred other artists I could list in a couple of heartbeats--in another review I addressed Frank Rosolino's horrible and horrifying end). 1st, it's Hollywood (in this case, the French film industry) that elects to take this route; 2nd, it's the sensational stuff out of which box office hits are made. But why do we have a magnetic attraction to such artists? Is it because their personal pain makes ours feel lessened by contrast? Or because knowing that others have gone through what we have, and yet bravely carried on while "singing in their chains," is an inspiring model to us all?

This collection omits the "Piaf anthem"--Je Ne Regrette Rien (maybe it's one of the "missing 4" on my 36-tune edition of this supposedly 40-song collection). The song's title is quite a statement--coming from a woman who died of cancer after 3 serious automobile accidents. But it's a song, for Pete's sake, not the defiant rejoinder of an unrepentant Epicurean to those who would judge her for "wasting" her life. All the same, about the absence of Je Ne Regrette Rien, I have no regrets. Any collection of Sinatra songs that included the tedious and mediocre "My Way" while proclaiming itself as representative of Sinatra the artist would deserve to be instantly discredited. As someone once said, "That's life!" ]

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