RIP Charles Dumont

 

Charles Dumont, composer of Edith Piaf's "No, I Regret Nothing", has died

Singer, author, composer, the musician had also collaborated with Barbra Streisand, Dalida and Tino Rossi. He died on Sunday night in Paris at the age of 95.

Le Monde

November 18, 2024

 

Singer-songwriter Charles Dumont, composer of Edith Piaf's Non, je ne regrette rien, died on the night of Sunday 17 to Monday 18 November in Paris at the age of 95, following a long illness, his partner announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP). On X, the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, paid tribute to the memory of "a sacred monster of French song".

The career of this trained trumpeter took a major turn when he convinced the star Edith Piaf to perform one of his compositions. It was in 1956 that the notes of what would become one of the most famous French songs in the world came out of the piano of Charles Dumont, then a little-known 27-year-old musician. But the singer is not convinced. "Piaf had already fired me three times, I didn't want to see her again," Charles Dumont told AFP in 2018. "But Michel Vaucaire, who wrote the lyrics, convinced me to try again in 1960. When she heard that I would be there, she screamed, demanding that the appointment be cancelled.”

"We still went to her home. She let us in. I played the piece on the piano. And... We never left each other," he said. "At that time, she was at her worst and this title brought her resurrection." No, je ne regrette rien (No, I Regret Nothing) has since become an unforgettable standard of La Vie en Rose, known throughout the world.

This was the beginning of a collaboration lasting several years, until Piaf's death in 1963, which gave birth to more than 30 pieces, including Mon dieu, Les Flonflons du bal and Les Amants. "My mother gave birth to me, but Edith Piaf put me in the world," said the singer and pianist born in Cahors on March 26, 1929. "Without her, I would never have done everything I did, neither as a composer nor as a singer," he said in an interview with AFP in 2015.

Throughout his sixty-year career, Charles Dumont has also collaborated with Dalida and Tino Rossi and had become a "crooner" at the end of the 1960s, abandoning his protest songs. He then released a series of albums in which the theme of love was central. The album Une femme had earned him the Prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros in 1973.

Charles Dumont also worked with Barbra Streisand. "It was fate that kicked me in the butt. A publisher advised me to offer her one of my compositions. I went to New York. I played it on a piano in her Broadway dressing room (...). She told me: "I like it a lot. I'll make the record. Goodbye, young man." The Wall, sung in French on the A side, and its English version entitled I've Been Here, on the B side, appear on the star's 8^th album, Je m'appelle Barbra, released in 1966.

His last stage appearance was in 2019 at the Théâtre de la Tour Eiffel. "When you come back in front of an audience, who come to see you as they came twenty, thirty or forty years ago and give you the same welcome, then they give you back your 20 years," he said.

DUMONT, Charles

Born: 2/26/1929, Cahors, Lot, France

Died: 11/18/2024, Cahors, Lot, France

 

Charles Dumont’s western – composer:

Belle Starr – 1968