release date: Nov. 24, 2009
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Hal Willner
label: V2 - nationality: Canada
Track highlights: 1. "La foule" - 4. "L'accordéoniste"
3rd album by Martha Wainwrigth, where the full title is Sans fusils, ni souliers, à Paris: Martha Wainwright's Piaf Record following the acclaimed I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too (May 2008). The album is not the expected new studio album. Instead, it's the live recordings of three concerts from mid-June 2009 at Dixon Place Theatre, New York, thus not what the title could imply recorded in Paris, France. The album title is with reference to the lyrics of "Les Grognards". All songs are Wainwright covers of familiar Edith Piaf songs and it's basically a tribute album.
It's indisputable that Wainwright is a most talented vocalist with a large repertoire and register, and as a French-Canadian she may possess a natural bond with French culture and traditions, and although she is highly capable as a singer, I just don't think she is up to the task particularly convincing on this arena. Wainwright is known for mastering contrasts between the emotionally vulnerable and the more expressively devilish, and yet here her voice seems to lack an emotional attuned dimension that you find in Piaf's versions, but also in songs performed by Mireille Mathieu, who have given most of these songs a different and personal quality.
It's not an unambiguously bad album, where Wainwright misses the mark - it's only more so that others have done it better.
[ Sunday Tribune 3 / 5, The Times, The Guardian 4 / 5 stars ]
