Damia (singer)

Biography

His parents are from the Vosges : his father Nicolas Damien is from Nonville and his mother, Marie Joséphine Louise Claude, was born April 28, 1858 in Darney. His maternal grandfather, Louis Claude, was an iron worker, and his maternal grandmother, Marie-Catherine Larcher, was an embroiderer (source: civil status of the City of Paris, 13th arrondissement, and departmental archives of the Vosges). Marie-Louise often goes on vacation to her maternal grandparents in Darney where they own a farm, before her parents move to Paris where her father becomes a police officer.

At the age of 15, Damia runs away from her father’s house and finds a figurative role at the Théâtre du Châtelet . She is noticed by Roberty, the husband of the “great” Fréhelwho gives her singing lessons and with whom she will have much later a liaison . From 1908 , she performed on the stage of coffee-concerts such as the Nursery-Opera , the Petit Casino and the Alhambra . She is the star of Félix Mayol’s “caf ‘conc'” show . Sacha GuitryHe claims that he recommended the black sheath, drew his silhouette and imposed a style to the realistic singers who will succeed him, such as Edith Piaf and Juliette Greco . But in a radio interview, she says the idea for the black dress came from Max Dearly.

She frequents early in the literary circle of women and lesbians around the poet and nanny Natalie Barney . She meets Romaine Brooks , Gabrielle Bloch , Loïe Fuller and, in this context, meets the architect, decorator and designer Eileen Gray , with whom she establishes a romantic relationship. Gray creates for the singer her first chair called “siren” ² .

At the same time, she has some important roles in the cinema.

Damia records the suicidogenic song Dark Sunday February 28, 1936. This song Szomoru Vasarnap , signed Laszlo Javor and Rezső Seress , is prohibited from public interpretation from its inception ³ .

Adulated by the public during the inter – war period , it was obscured after the occupation by younger idols, notably Edith Piaf ⁴ . She triumphed, however, in a recital at Pleyel in 1949 and toured Japan in 1953 . She goes back to the stage in Paris in 1954 , at the Olympia , with Jacques Brel , then a beginner, and in 1955 .

Named “the tragedian of the song”, it is also admired by writers of all kinds, from Jean Cocteau to Robert Desnos . Later, filmmakers like Jean Eustache , Aki Kaurismäki and Claude Chabrol re-enact his songs. Damia dies on January 30 , 1978at La Celle-Saint-Cloud . She is buried in the cemetery of Pantin .

Posterity and tributes

In the 1930s, Damia is known for her black dress and her refusal to have a painted decoration behind it, what is new at that time ⁵ .

Modernity has influenced many artists of the second half of the xx ^th century, like Edith Piaf ⁵ , Jacques Brel or Gainsbourg ⁶ .

In 1997, is created in the 11 ^th arrondissement of Paris a garden labeled ” ecological green space “, called Garden Damia in tribute to the singer ⁷ .

A museum dedicated to Damia is being created (spring 2017) in the former Darney Castle on the initiative of the Darney Friends of Heritage Association and Parisian collectors.

Works

Songs (selective directory)

• Gray
• A souvenir (rediscovered in The Mom and Whore of Jean Eustache and The Flower of Evil by Claude Chabrol )
• Venenosa
• Calvary of love
• Fog
• I am scared
• The bells did not ring

1926

• haunt

1927

• The Street of Joy
• The Two Ménétriers (text by Jean Richepin )

1928

• Chain
• Tell me
• Ploum ploum ploum

1929

• The Gulls (lyrics and music by Lucien Boyer )
• The Organ (text by Charles Cros )
• Slavery

1930

• I have the cockroach
• It’s my gigolo
• The Greater Curly
• Since the balls are closed

1931

• You do not know how to love ( Song extracted from the movie ” Sola “ )
• Nocturnes
• I would like that night
• Mackie’s Lament (from the French version of Kurt Weill’s ” The Three-Quarter Opera ” and Bertolt Brecht )
• For a single love
• It’s not always funny ( Song extracted from the movie ” One night of roundup “ )
• The Most Beautiful Song
• Midnight loves
• We do not fight against love (French version of the German song Leben ohne liebe kanst nicht played by Marlene Dietrich )
• Nothing is left
• The Song of the Past

1932

• My sailor
• The worried
• De Profundis
• Tender Lullaby (It’s so good near you) ( Leo Daniderff – Daniderff, Ronn)

1933

• Beautiful little sailor passing
• The widow
• to get there
• Complainte (song from the movie La Tête d’un homme )

• I drank
• Night Guard at the Yser
• The suppliante
• Gypsy Songs – Road Song
• Gypsy Songs – Song to Drink
• The Song of the waves
• Roll your hump
• Sing for me, violins (French version of Play Fiddle, Play )
• Rain
• All day, all night (French Version of Cole Porter’s Night and Day )

1934

• La Guinguette closed its shutters
• In house
• Toboggan
• Me … I’m bored (music from Wal-Berg )

1935

• The bad prayer
• My phono sings
• I lost my youth

1936

• Sun in his eyes
• Dark Sunday
• It’s the guinguette
• Whoever goes away
• In the four corners of the suburbs (words by Michel Vaucaire )
• Do you like mussels? (words of Henri Varna and Michel Vaucaire )
• The one who goes away (words of Charles Richter , music of Tiarko Richepin )

1937

• The Stranger (music by Robert Juel and Marguerite Monnot )

1938

• Johnny Palmer ( Christian Vebel’s words )
• Person (lyrics and music by Michel Emer )
• It’s in a cabulot
• The curse
• Singing coffee

1939

• Everything is off the table (words by Raymond Asso )
• Balalaika (Charlys – Maurice Vandair , Gastil)

1941

• Autumn swirls

1942

• My love has just finished (words of Edith Piaf and music Marguerite Monnot )

1943

• In my loneliness

1944

• My street
• We dance at La Villette
• Hello my dog

1948

• The woman with the rose

1952

• Two women

Filmography

• 1927 : Napoleon , of Abel Gance
• 1930 : You will forget me about Henri Diamant-Berger
• 1931 : Sola , by Henri Diamant-Berger : Sola
• 1932 : The head of a man , Julien Duvivier
• 1937 : The pearls of the crown of Sacha Guitry and Christian-Jaque
• 1956 : Our Lady of Paris , by Jean Delannoy

Theater

• 1927 : The Prosecutor Hallers of Louis Forest and Henry de Gorsse after Paul Lindau , theater of the Odeon

Bibliography

• Francesco Rapazzini , Damia, a French diva , Paris, Perrin editions,2010, 412 p. ( ISBN  978-2-262-03403-0 )
• Gianni Lucini , Luci, lucciole e canzoni sotto il cielo di Parigi – Storie di singer nella Francia del Primo Novecento) , Novara, Segni e Parole, 2014, 160 p. ( ISBN  978-88-908494-4-2 )

Notes and references