Search - Raquel Bitton :: Sings Edith Piaf

It is, of course, a ridiculous notion: breathing life into a long-gone musical legend in performances and, seemingly even more outré, in the recording studio. And the subject of the tributes is not Elvis but Edith Piaf, the improbable French pop legend whose incredible life reads like seedy, over-the-top pages discarded from a Jackie Collins novel. But ludicrous or not, Raquel Bitton has tackled the task with a verve and courage worthy of the street-corner nightingale herself. And while the voice may not always be the virtually operatic vessel that Piaf possessed, Bitton's is a good deal more than "close enough for jazz," as the saying goes. More importantly, the chanteuse captures Piaf's intense emotionality and grand theatrical essence, the very elements that turn mere pop songs into hymns, confessionals and, at their best, self-contained, three-minute operettas. Bitton cannily delivers the goods in bilingual fashion, making Piaf's challenging body of work all the more inviting to unfamiliar listeners. Bob Holloway's effectively spare arrangements capture the vintage air of the originals, making the album's gimmicky scratchy phonograph record opening a bit superfluous. A sonically transparent way to (re)discover the legend that is Piaf. --Jerry McCulley