“Édith Piaf brought me into the world”: the musician Charles Dumont, composer of the legendary “Non, je ne regrette rien” and traveling companion of “La Môme”, died in the night from Sunday to Monday at the age 95.
This singer-songwriter, who also collaborated with Dalida and Barbra Streisand, died following a long illness at his Parisian home, his partner Florence announced to AFP.
On X, the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati saluted the memory of “a sacred monster of French song”.
The career of this trained trumpeter took a major turn at the turn of the 1960s when he ended up convincing the star Édith Piaf to perform one of his compositions.
“No, I regret nothing” has since become an unforgettable standard of “La Môme”, known throughout the world.
“My mother brought me into the world but Édith Piaf brought me into the world,” said this musician born in Cahors on March 26, 1929. “Without her, I would never have done everything I did” , he assured AFP in 2015.
However, it was a long road before Piaf agreed to put his cheeky voice on the piece.
It was in 1956 that the notes of what would become one of the best-known French songs in the world emerged from the piano of Charles Dumont, then a 27-year-old little-known 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 found out I would be there, she screamed, demanding that the appointment be canceled.”
“We still showed up at 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.”
– Solo career –
Thus began a collaboration lasting several years, until Piaf's death in 1963, which would give rise to more than 30 pieces, including “Mon Dieu”, “Les floflons du bal” and “Les Amants”.
“If I became an international composer, it’s thanks to Edith,” said Dumont, who then worked with the American Barbra Streisand.
“It was fate that kicked me in the butt. A publisher advised me to offer him one of my compositions. I went to New York. I played it on a piano in his dressing room from Broadway (…). She said to me: +I like it a lot.
“Le Mur”, sung in French on side A, and its English version titled “I've been Here”, on side B, appear on the star's 8th album, “Je m'appelle Barbra” released in 1966 .
Dumont's singing career was also marked by his companionship with Piaf, for whom he sometimes opened.
“One evening, I told her as I was leaving the stage that the audience wasn't good. She looked me straight in the eyes and said: 'It wasn't them who were bad. It was you who weren't not good+. I then understood that the public does not make success, it’s what we give that works.”
When Piaf died, he took up the microphone again before abandoning his protest songs to adopt a crooner register, a term he did not like, however. “Let’s leave it to the Americans, who do it so well!”, he said.
He has a series of albums where love takes the lion's share.
Until 2019, he continued to perform on stage. “When you come back in front of an audience, who comes to see you as they did 20, 30 or 40 years ago and gives you the same welcome, then they give you back your 20 years,” he explained.
