When Grace Kelly was young, Jo Stafford reportedly was her favourite singer: Listening to You Belong To Me by Jo Stafford, one is immediately struck …
Gram Parsons: Ambassador of Country Music
In the course of his short life, he released just two albums as a solo artist, but with these albums he influenced country music like …
Christa Ludwig: It Takes More Than Only Primadonnas
The philosopher Theodor W. Adorno once said that a person’s musical education begins nine months before birth. Christa Ludwig proves Adorno right: In her memoirs, …
Edith Piaf: A Sonorous Laugh (2.)
Continued from part one For Edith Piaf, there seemed to be no such thing as a hopeless situation: After Lepplée’s death, she was discovered by …
Julie London: The Voice of Intimacy
Not without reason has Julie London’s singing voice been described as “the voice of intimacy”: When Julie London sang, she was usually accompanied only by …
Jacques Brel: The chanson was his vocation
“There is nothing more annoying than having to put a note under every word,” Jacques Brel once claimed. It was his greatest passion and talent …
Montserrat Caballé: The Spanish Opera Diva (2.)
Continued from part one At the beginning of the seventies, Montserrat Caballé was faced with probably the greatest artistic challenge of her career: opera connoisseurs …
Frank Sinatra: Ol’ Blue Eyes
When the young singer Frank Sinatra saw his idol Bing Crosby at a concert in Jersey City in 1932, he made the decision to one …
Yves Montand: Chanson, Charm, Chic (1.)
His big idol was Fred Astaire: Yves Montand (civil name Ivo Livi) was born on October 13, 1921 in Tuscany and grew up in humble circumstances. In 1924 Yves Montand’s family fled to Marseille: the political situation in Italy destroyed the Livis’ existence…
Leonard Cohen: The poet
He was one of the most influential singer-songwriters of modern music history: Leonard Cohen. After Cohen studied in New York for one year from 1956 …