From the beginning of her career in 1935 to her death in 1963 and right up to the present
Édith Piaf has been recognized as unique and iconic. She is France's most celebrated and
mythified singing star across the world. Récital 1961 explores her most important album: the
live recording of her comeback concert at the Paris Olympia on 29 December 1960 which unveiled
her keynote song 'Non je ne regrette rien' (No Regrets). It examines the content context and
significance of the concert in relation to Piaf's career her life and her celebrity. What was
so special about the performance and why did the ecstatic audiences that night and at the
subsequent performances in 1961 find it so powerful and moving? The book dissects the live
show the album and the songs that feature on it and at a deeper level their place in the
invention of the public Piaf we know today - asking why more than a century after her birth
and 60 years after her death we still remember her listen to her and commemorate her around
the world.
