“Édith Piaf brought me into the world”: musician Charles Dumont, composer of the legendary song No, I don’t regret anything and traveling companion of “La Môme”, died in the night from Sunday to Monday at the age of 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 French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, praised 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.
From, No, I don’t regret anything has 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 (southwest) on March 26, 1929. “Without her, I would never have done all that that 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 his 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.”
Thus began a collaboration lasting several years, until Piaf’s death in 1963, which would give rise to more than 30 pieces, including My God, The balls of the ball or The Lovers.
“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 on Broadway […]. She told me: “I like it a lot. I’ll make the record. Goodbye, young man…”»
The Wallsung in French on side A, and its English version titled I’ve been Hereon the B side, appear on the star’s eighth album, My name is Barbra, published in 1966.
Dumont’s singing career, too, was marked by his companionship with Piaf, for whom he sometimes opened.
“One evening, I told him as I was leaving the stage that the audience was not good. She looks me straight in the eye and says, “They weren’t the bad ones. You’re the one who wasn’t 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.
