EDITH PIAF CHANSONS DES CAFES DE PARIS Decca DU 697 78

$

43

WEEK 1 of 3 weeks of great auctions,  until Dec 18.

Some great collectible HOLIDAY GIFTS for yourself your friends and family.

IMPORTANT:

Per US Postal Service, the following dates for Christmas shipping have been posted:

Parcel Post - Media Mail - December 15 2011

Priority Mail - December 21 2011.

If you would like to receive your parcel for Christmas, pls let me know by email.

PLS READ BELOW for INCREASED SHIPPING CHARGES due to Ebay Policy

I AM HAPPY COMBINE MULTIPLE SHIPMENTS.

IF YOU WIN MULTIPLE ITEMS DO NOT USE EBAY CHECK OUT in order for me to get you low combined postage. Send me an invoice request instead.

Early Edith Piaf in the great ALBUM

CHANSONS DES CAFES DE PARIS Decca DU 697/ A 697

with Raymond Legrand and his Orchestra

Les Cloches Sonnent/ Si tu partais

Le geste/ Monsieur Ernest a Reussi

Monsieur X/ Amour au Mois de Mai

3x10" 78 rpm records with album and notes

Condition: VERY GOOD PLUS PLUS, some light greying, plays Excellent very quiet. Scuffs, needs cleaning. Album still togethe but somewhat rough: Spine is split and most of the spine is missing.

Original 1935-1947 Recordings

Piaf was discovered by the artistic director of French Polydor N J Canetti in a Cabaret

In 1935 (so she claims in her 1958 autobiography Au bal de la chance) she was "discovered" while busking in the L’Etoile district by Louis Leplée. The proprietor of the presigious Cabaret Gerny, a club situated midway between the Champs-Elysées and the Avenue Georges V, Leplée introduced her as ‘La môme Piaf’ (literally: ‘the urchin sparrow’ or, perhaps, ‘singing street-urchin’) and she was an instant sensation with her rendition of "Les mômes de la cloche", a ditty about street-walkers. Within weeks she had made her first appearance on ‘Le Music Hall des Jeunes’ on the commercial Parisian radio station Radio Cité and before long, she was recording for Polydor (her first session, December 1935, included La java de Cézique and Mon apéro).

To most ears Edith Piaf is a synonym for French cabaret, although to the more versed she surely had her influences, her audible antecedents (Cora Madou, perhaps — even, to some extent, albeit subconsciously, Lucienne Boyer) insofar as they were "around" during her adolescence. But she remains, nonetheless, an outstandingly individual communicator in her own right, not only because of the directness of her delivery but also because the underlying subjects of so many of her songs — drugs, sex, love, infidelity and death — still speak strongly to modern society, her later efforts especially characterised by that melancholic despondency which prompted Yves Montand to label her ‘marchande de cafard’ (= gloom-and-doom merchant). Yet even in this mode she creates a spontaneity in which the compressed emotion of, say, La vie en rose or the gritty resolve of "Non, je ne regrette rien" combine with "fragilité", that brittle, often aggressive, essentially French femininity to place her as a great chanteuse-tragédienne in the tradition of her heroine and youthful role-model Maryse Damià (1890-1978).

The legendary Piaf grew up in a Paris both grim and "romantic" (in the sense of the historic Paname still sought by foreign visitors) and her art on records is to some degree a mythical reflection of its seedy backstreets. Her life is so overlaid with rumour and anecdote that even now, after various biographies, its facts and its fictions are often blurred. It is however certain that her earliest years were marked by dire poverty and struggle. She was born Edith Giovanna Gassion, at Rue de Belleville 72, in the working-class quarter, on 19th December 1915. Her teenage mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1898-1945), a native of Livorno, was a part-Italian café-chanteuse who performed under the pseudonym ‘Line Marsa’; her beloved father, Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881-1944), of theatrical background, was both a gifted acrobat and a notorious womaniser who joined the French Army in 1916 leaving the infant Edith to her mother’s devices.

Annetta soon took to the streets as a singer, leaving Edith in the hands of Mena, her mother, a dilatory and unfit foster-parent who neglected the child until Louis came to the rescue and consigned her to the care of his own mother, a housekeeper in a Normandy brothel. Thus it was that from her tenderest years Edith came in contact with pimps and prostitutes, a circumstance later to have significant bearing on her many songs reflecting Parisian low-life. In 1929 she joined her father’s acrobatic act but the following year, aged 15, struck out on her own as a street-singer in Pigalle, Ménilmontant and neighbouring Parisian faubourgs. There, whatever she didn’t already know about life she learned the hard way, the ramifications of which would emerge in her powerful, earthy treatment in song of deprivation and love — invariably of the unrequited sort. In this context, such songs as "Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle" and Mon cœur est au coin d’une rue assume an unmistakably personal connotation.

In 1935 (so she claims in her 1958 autobiography Au bal de la chance) she was "discovered" while busking in the L’Etoile district by Louis Leplée. The proprietor of the presigious Cabaret Gerny, a club situated midway between the Champs-Elysées and the Avenue Georges V, Leplée introduced her as ‘La môme Piaf’ (literally: ‘the urchin sparrow’ or, perhaps, ‘singing street-urchin’) and she was an instant sensation with her rendition of "Les mômes de la cloche", a ditty about street-walkers. Within weeks she had made her first appearance on ‘Le Music Hall des Jeunes’ on the commercial Parisian radio station Radio Cité and before long, she was recording for Polydor (her first session, December 1935, included La java de Cézique and Mon apéro).

When, suddenly, Leplée was brutally murdered, Piaf was interrogated by the police and tabloid journalists did their best to implicate her, but although saddened and shocked by the episode she emerged unscathed and, despite gossip and rumour, went from strength to strength. During 1936 she made further appearances on radio (she would remain throughout her career a regular broadcaster) and her film début (with Arletty, in La garçonne). Her second film, Montmartre-sur-Seine (1941) featured several of her songs and was a noted success. Although often accused during WWII of collaboration with the Nazis she was, like many other artists, at least outwardly apolitical, while via her songs offering at least a covert moral support to the Resistance movement.

The peak of Piaf’s stardom spanned the immediate post-war decade 1945-1955. World renown came her way following her 1947 American tour and through such recordings as her own, monumental La vie en rose (she actually wrote the lyrics in 1945 which were later set to music by the Spaniard Louis Louiguy, b.1916). Her pre-1945 discs display a brightness and freshness which complements the rather more morose accents of her later work. Several of her earliest songs were written expressly for her, although some she appropriated had earlier been featured by other cabaret artists. At Gerny’s she first met resident pianist-composer Raymond Asso (1901-1968), one of her lovers and an important formative influence in her career. A handsome ex-Foreign Legionaire, Asso supplied the lyrics for many of her earliest successes.

A former arranger to cabaret singer Marie Dubas, in 1934 Asso wrote for her Mon légionnaire, a song which Piaf would soon earmark for herself. Through Asso, Piaf met pianist-composer Marguerite Monnot (1903-1961). A piano pupil of both Cortot and Nadia Boulanger, Monnot was the daughter of the celebrated blind French organist Marius Monnot. Her friendship with Piaf began after the latter assimilated "L’étranger" (her 1935 Grand Prix du Disque-winning song featured by Annette Lajon) into her repertoire. Another important artistic influence on Piaf, Monnot co-wrote various numbers with her, including "C’était un jour de fête", "Paris-Méditerranée" , J’ai dansé avec l’amour, C’est un monsieur très distingué and Tu es partout (among the songs Piaf sang in her 1943 film Montmartre-sur-Seine, this was interpolated into Steven Spielberg’s The Saving Of Private Ryan, 1998).

What perhaps continues to delight us most is the range of mood of Piaf’s output: in its clever juxtapositions and apparent contradictions lie its perennial appeal. Whereas C’était une histoire d’amour (by Asso’s disciples Jean Jal and Henri Contet) rates among the most poignantly sombre of all Piaf’s renderings, it is outwardly light-hearted and as utterly French as L’accordéoniste, a 1937-vintage song success whose composer, the accordionist Michel Emer (1906-1984), had to twist Piaf’s arm before she would even sing it!

Edith Piaf died in Paris on 11th October, 1963.

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 Quick NOTE ON GRADING AND SHIPPING:

As you can see from my feedback, I try hard to earn your POSITIVE FEEDBACK and FIVE STAR RATINGS.

If for any reason your transaction was NOT SATISFACTORY, pls contact me and I will work something out with you. YOU WILL NEVER HAVE A REASON TO GIVE ME A NEGATIVE RATING or a LOW STAR RATING.

Quick note on grading:

The Grade (Excellent to Fair, I don't give Mint) refers to the WEAR of the record. Any other defects are stated separately, when prefaced with "HOWEVER" or "BUT" they will be significant.

When I listen to a record, I may also give it an aural grade (again E to F), and make a SUBJECTIVE judgment of the pressing quality for hiss and surface noise.
"SUPERQUIET" is basically noiseless, like a vinyl pressing.
"VERY QUIET" is an exceptionally quiet record for a given pressing.
"Quiet" is a record that is a great example without undue noise for a give pressing.

These judgments are SUBJECTIVE and will depend one the styli, phonograph etc. you use on your own equipment.

Pls check my other auctions for more great records and phonograph items:

Some items will come on-line later this week. Pls check again my auctions for more great items after Thursday Dec 1, 8:30 pm PST

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This is WEEK 1 of THREE consecutive weeks of auctions.

I am happy to hold your items and bill you at the end of the auction cycle. Pls send me a note if you would like me to hold records

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Shipment is usually Media Mail, unless another service is requested. Shipping is at your risk.

I charge actual postage plus a small fee for packing materials

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If you are in the San Francisco area, I encourage pick-up in person.

EBAY NOW CHARGES 9% on all SHIPPING CHARGES
Also, USPS has increased postal rates. Since I am always shipping at cost, I am sorry to say that after keeping my shipping rates stable for 5 years, I unfortunately now have to increase the prices.

However, if you are interested in lowering you shipping cost, pls send me a message, and I may be able to arrange for better rates !!!

Here a quick breakdown of my costs, you see that due to the new Ebay policy you will pay anywhere from $.50 to $.80 in additional Ebay fees on the first record

US Domestic Shipping:

Here is a guideline for US Media Mail Shipping:

Prices below are for regular 78 rpm records. Up to about 5 records, I will ship Edison Discs for the same rates. Albums from Album Sets count as 1 record. Above that and for international shipments, it will be actual weight plus a small packing charge (1-3$ depending on size of shipment)

1 record: 4.75$

2 records: 5.75$

5 records: 7.50$

10 records: 9.50$

MANY MORE RECORDS: Don't worry. I safely ship 40 - 50 pounds of records double boxed in moving boxes, and even then Media Mail will probably not exceed 30$.

The numbers above include the 9% Ebay fee on shipments.
Pls ignore the automatically calculated prices on the ebay site, as I will weigh every parcel and charge based on actual weight.

Please send me a message if you would like to lower your shipping rates!

International Buyers:

All'attenzione degli acquirenti italiani:

ATTENTION TO ITALIAN BUYERS:

Due to rare problems with delivery in ITALY, I will NOT GUARANTEE delivery of parcels sent by US Postal Service First Class and Priority Mail. If you prefer secure delivery, I will be happy to quote you either Registered Mail or shipment by FEDEX

I am very happy to ship records worldwide.

Prices below are for regular 78 rpm records. For Edison Discs in  international shipments, it will charge for the actual weight plus a small packing charge (1-2$) - for small quantities, it will not be much different from the charge for regular 78s.

Pls contact me for a shipping estimate, or send me an invoice request after close of auction.

Be aware that US Postal Rates can be high. Here are some examples.

Your best bet is the Large Priority box, everything that fits into a 12"x12"x5 1/2" box up to 20 pounds ships for 60$ (35$ Canada) worldwide.

However, I can get competitive rates from FedEx and the US Postal service for any kind of parcel weight

Africa, Eastern Asia and Japan as well as Europe

1 record = 2 lbs $25 - $28

4 lbs = $37

20 lbs or all that fits into a 12"x12"x 5 1/2" box ((12" albums won't fit)= $60

I may be able to get some better FedEx rates.
Pls email with your address for an estimate.

Canada

1 record = 2 lbs $ 11 - $13

4 lbs = 22$
20 lbs or all that fits into a 12"x12"x 5 1/2" (12" albums won't fit)= $38
I may be able to get some better FedEx rates.
Pls email with your address for an estimate.

AND AGAIN -THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST

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