Charles Dumont, author of Edith Piaf’s anthem ‘No, je ne regrette rien’, dies

Trained as a trumpeter, Dumont took a momentous turn in his life in 1960, when he convinced the star singer Piaf to perform one of his compositions, after she had rejected him several times. «We showed up at his house and he let us in. I played the piece on the piano, he asked me if I was really the composer and I said yes.. He asked me to play again, and then a third time, so I did, and his mood changed. He looked at me differently. He told me: “Don’t worry, young man. “This song will go around the world and I will open my next concert tour with it,” and we became inseparable,” Dumont told AFP in 2018 about the day he met with Piaf along with her lyricist, Michel Vaucaire. He had written the song in 1956, and Piaf died in 1963. «My mother gave birth to me, but Edith Piaf brought me into the world. Without her, I would never have done everything I did, neither as a composer nor as a singer,” he said in another 2015 interview.

Legend has it that Piaf said about ‘Non, Je ne Regrette Rien’ (‘No, I regret nothing’): «The protagonist of the song is me! “That’s my life!” The song went on to sell 800,000 copies, spent seven weeks at the top of the French charts and became not only one of the best-known French songs of all time, recorded in at least a dozen languages, but also became in the anthem of resistance of the French Foreign Legion in the Algerian war of independence. After the success of ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’, Dumont became a regular collaborator of the French singer and composed other songs for her that also became very popular such as ‘Mon Dieu’, ‘Flonflons du Bal or ‘Les Amants’ , some performed together.

‘Non, je ne regriette rien’ was part of the soundtrack of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Origin’, Ron Shelton’s ‘Bull Durham’ or the final scene of Piaf’s biopic ‘La Môme’ ( ‘Life in Pink’), among other works that became references of popular culture. It is also an important part of the film ‘Inception’, by Christopher Nolan. It has been covered by Shirley Bassey, Johnny Hallyday, Tina Arena, Isabelle Boulay, Dalida, Raphael, the Argentinian Elena Roger and Estela Raval, Vicky Leandros (in German), Les Garçons Bouchers, Garou, Patricia Kaas, Mireille Mathieu, Marc Lavoine and Nicole Martin.

Piaf’s death in 1963 led him to work with Jacques Brelwriting ‘Je m’en remets à toi’ in 1964, and composing songs for television programs such as Michel Vaillant in 1967, and cinema, for Jacques Tati’s ‘Trafic’ in 1971.

The impact of the collaborations with Piaf and Brel gave Dumont the confidence to approach Barbra Streisand, who was already a star in the sixties and was on her way to becoming one of the best-selling artists in history. A music publisher suggested he offer his services, advice he later described as “fate” giving him “a kick in the butt.” He went to New York, played for her on a piano in her dressing room at a Broadway theater and after closing their collaboration deal they released ‘Le Mur’ and ‘I’ve Been Here’ in 1966, and in 1971 they achieved another hit. massive with ‘I’ve been here’. Dalida, Gloria Lasso, Juliette Gréco, Luis Mariano and Tino Rossi were other artists who signed him as a contributing composer.

In the mid-1970s, Dumont concentrated on his own performing career with hits such as ‘Une chanson’ (1976) and ‘Les amours impossibles’ (1978). The decade of the eighties was the most prolific of his career, with successful albums such as ‘Un homme tout simplyment’ (1980), ‘Les Chansons d’amour’ (1981), ‘Aime-moi’ (1982), ‘Souviens -toi… un jour à Édith Piaf’ (1983), ‘Passion’ (1984), ‘Volupté’ (1985), ‘Libre’ (1987) or ‘Le Bout du monde’ (1988). Charles Dumont’s last appearance on stage was in Paris in 2019, the year in which he published what would be his last album, ‘L’Âme sœur’.