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Carolyn Burke, author of "No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf," talks about the night that Edith Piaff was discovered by a night club owner. The full interview from a 2011 episode of "Conversations On The Coast with Jim Foster" can be heard now wherever you get your podcasts.
This time of year typically marks the start of wedding season, with venues, vendors and engaged couples all gearing up for major gatherings. Now, many such celebrations have been cancelled or postponed in light of the ongoing spread of COVID-19, and those working in the event industry are reeling. But when the upheaval of coronavirus eventually settles down — and even in the midst of it all, in some cases — St. Louis remains a great city in which to get hitched. Just ask Carolyn Burke, whose small business aims to make St. Louis a destination for elopement. With courthouses currently closed to nuptials, she’s found a workaround by bringing her officiant credentials and related services straight to wherever couples are located. In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with Burke as well as two other locals who have a track record of helping people think outside the box about weddings and other events: Stuart Keating, co-owner of Earthbound Beer; and Rachel McCalla, event director at Third Degree Glass Factory. The conversation touches on local impacts of COVID-19 but especially focused on the creative thinking that was already underway among some local venues and vendors — and may be more attractive than ever as couples look toward what’s next. It also includes comments from Stuart Hultgren and Sara Hasz, a local engaged couple who had planned to get married in early May in Tower Grove Park.
Foursome is the spirited account of the intense relationship among four artists whose strong personalities, passionate feelings and aesthetic ideals drew them together, pulled them apart and profoundly influenced 20th-century art. In 1921, Alfred Stieglitz, the most influential figure in early 20th-century photography, celebrated the success of his latest New York City exhibition, whose centerpiece was a series of nude portraits of the young Georgia O'Keeffe (soon to be his wife). It was also a turning point for both O'Keeffe and Rebecca Salsbury, the fiancée of Stieglitz's protégé at the time, Paul Strand. In the years that followed, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz became the preeminent couple in American modern art, spurring each other's creativity. Observing that relationship led Salsbury to encourage new artistic possibilities for Strand and to rethink her own potential as an artist. In fact, it was Salsbury, the least known of the four, who was the main thread that wove the two couples' lives together. Carolyn Burke mines this foursome's correspondence to reveal how each inspired, provoked and unsettled the others while pursuing their own artistic innovations. MLF ORGANIZER NAME George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Paintings, drawings, photographs, moving pictures, poetry, and letters infuse this episode of Word By Word: Conversations With Writers. This is because host Gil Mansergh’s and studio engineer Anthony Garcia’s guest is the respected biographer Carolyn Burke with her latest book Foursome. The four people who burst forth in this volume are photographer Alfred Stieglitz, painter Georgia O’Keefe, movie maker Paul Strand, and writer/painter Rebecca Salsbury.
As the latest instalment of Star Wars hits cinema screens around the world, director J.J. Abrams discusses how he decided on his approach to the seventh film in the franchise: The Force Awakens.To mark the 30th anniversary of the adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses for the stage, Samira Ahmed talks to writer Christopher Hampton and director Josie Rourke about their new production for the Donmar Warehouse.As the centenary of Edith Piaf's birth approaches, biographer Carolyn Burke and singer Barb Jungr discuss the singer's enduring appeal.
It was Easter Sunday, so I resurrected my 2011 interview with Carolyn Burke, discussing her book No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf. Carolyn is equally strong on the biographical details and the musical oeuvre of France's great songstress, and provided astute commentary on some of Piaf's signature songs.
Edith Piaf's story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland's. And yet, so often Piaf's high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse's legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke's book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf's records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it's where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Edith Piaf’s story is rife with drama. The daughter of an acrobat and a singer, she was the first French superstar and sang with wild abandon in a voice that rivaled Judy Garland’s. And yet, so often Piaf’s high-spirits are used against her and her life is made to fit the standard template of the tortured artist: early ambition, a meteoric rise to fame, a string of meaningless love affairs and substance abuse leading to an early death. In light of this tendency, Carolyn Burke‘s No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf (Knopf, 2011) serves as a much needed corrective, breathing life back into the chanteuse’s legacy. During her short life Piaf consistently demonstrated an extraordinary boldness- in her relationships, yes, but also in her singing, her spirituality, her artistic collaborations and her commitment to France during World War II. And the music! That voice! “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to pulse beneath the text of Burke’s book and, reading it, one cannot help but be steered back to Piaf’s records. Burke was undoubtedly conscious of this as it’s where she got her title. “That kid Piaf tears your guts out.” So said Maurice Chevalier after hearing the 19-year-old newcomer sing in a Parisian nightclub. Nearly 50 years after death, as No Regrets proves, she still does. *No Regrets will be available in paperback on April 1, 2012, from Chicago Review Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The writer Carolyn Burke joins us to pay tribute to France's quintessential songstress. Carolyn's new biography "No Regrets: The Life of of Edith Piaf," sheds new light on both the artist and her art. Carolyn and I discussed Piaf while listening to some classic recordings.