“This song will go round the world. It will never leave you. It’ll stay with you for the rest of your life”..La môme Piaf, with her incredible artistic intuition, immediately understood that by composing for herself Non, je ne regrette rienCharles Dumont’s new album, Non je ne regrette rien (No, I don’t regret anything), will give his career a new lease of life, and better still, leave an indelible mark on the art of French chanson.

More than sixty years after this incantatory melody, written to lyrics by Michel Vaucaire, the artist who all his life repeated with humility that without Piaf…, “we’re nothing at all”.the musician who composed almost forty scores for the little woman who thrilled New York’s Carnegie Hall, died peacefully at home at the age of 95 on Sunday night, following a long illness.

Charles Dumont was born on March 26, 1929, in Cahors, the town of Clément Marot, favorite poet of François I.^er. In his Memoirs, No, I still regret nothingwritten in 2012, the singer saw it as a sign of destiny. For, throughout his life, he would strive to set beautiful words of love to his pretty melodies, in the manner of this master of the pen. His mother, a woman in poor health, entrusted his education to his aunt. The child was serious at school, but it wasn’t long before his passion for jazz overtook him. Louis Armstrong became his role model. He took trumpet lessons to try to imitate him and, above all, to understand his unique gesture. By the age of 18, his talents as an instrumentalist were recognized, and he won a medal at the Toulouse Conservatoire. Little did he know, another of jazz’s sacred monsters, Duke Ellington, will cover Non, je ne regrette rien, – No regrets in Shakespeare’s language – a sort of tribute to the musical sensibility he had cultivated during his apprenticeship.

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The miracle of ” No, I have no regrets “

In 1949, a simple tonsil operation shook his life for the first time. Only twenty years old, he knew he would never be able to play the trumpet again. The dream of following in the footsteps of Louis Armstrong and his Wonderful World flies away forever. It was a catastrophe for him, but a lucky star protected him. The organist at Saint-Ambroise church cheered him up by introducing him to piano playing and harmony. Charles found his calling: composer. From 1950 to 1960, Charles Dumont toiled away at his keyboard, making a meager living from odd jobs. It wasn’t long before his first critical acclaim came, and this natural optimist saw it as a sign of encouragement. Singer Danièle Dupré, future representative of Luxembourg at the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest, was awarded the Édith-Piaf prize in 1952 for her rendition ofOffrandefor which he wrote the melody. The lean days of anonymously composing tunes for stars like Tino Rossi, Dalida, Gloria Lasso and Luis Mariano were about to come to an end, but Charles didn’t know that yet.

Everything in life is a matter of chance encounters. Charles soon crosses paths with lyricist Michel Vaucaire, a talented songwriter in need of a composer as gifted as himself. Together, they wrote for the crème de la crème of French chanson at the time: Lucienne Delyle, Marcel Amont, Cora Vaucaire, the lyricist’s wife and the creator of the hit singles, “Les Chansons”. Feuilles mortes by Prévert and Kosma. By 1956, they had produced their jewel, Non, je ne regrette rien. It stays in a drawer for a while. To make these sacred lyrics and music vibrate, they think of Môme Piaf, the singer with a capital C. The greatest of them all, they’re sure. Their chaotic encounter in 1960 is now the stuff of legend. The singer began to spurn the young composer three times. On October 5, the big day finally arrived. Piaf was unwell, but deigned to receive Dumont and Vaucaire. Shy Charles took up the piano. He pressed hard on the keyboard. He hums No, I regret nothing. The rest is history. With his infallible instinct, “l’oiseau de Ménilmuche” (the bird from Ménilmuche) understands at once that she has found the composer who will enable her to make her big comeback on stage.

“The jazzman from Cahors

But their friendship and admiration were not to last. It ended abruptly on October 10, 1963 with the death of the incomparable singer. Unhappy to have lost the woman who had revealed his talent, he went through a short period of desolation. However, it would be unfair to sum up Charles Dumont’s career with the forty or so little jewels the composer offered to the woman he always called with immense respect “Madame Édith Piaf. Initially at a loss, Dumont enriched his palette by composing music for soap operas (The Adventures of Michel Vaillant, Gorri the Devil) or films, such as Traffic and Paradeby Jacques Tati. In 1967, a second talented woman knocked at the door of his artistic destiny. Her name was Sophie Makhno. A woman of many talents, song editor, secretary to Barbara andAnne Sylvestreshe gave him the strength to finally put himself forward. This subtle lyricist wrote lyrics that perfectly reflected the composer’s sensibility. All are about love, and their titles speak for themselves Nuit blanche à Honfleur, Les Gens qui s’aiment, Aime-moi, Les Chansons d’amour sans oublier the most famous, Your cigarette after sex…

The composer becomes a singer. The duo went from strength to strength until the early 1980s, winning no less than three gold discs with the famous Cigarette but also A song and Les Amours impossibles. The modest Charles Dumont, propelled to the rank of star singer, would then remember the formidable premonition of Édith Piaf who, eternal Pygmalion, had said to him: “No one sings your songs better than you, you put so much heart into them, so much feeling that I’m amazed myself.” And from then on, protected by the spirit of La Môme who continued to watch over him from heaven, he would never regret anything again..