"La Vie en Rose" singer steps into spotlight

By Ann Donahue

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - When Marion Cotillard won the best-actress Academy Award in February for her portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose," Jil Aigrot, at home in the South of France, became "very emotional."

"I was so very, very, very happy for all the team," Aigrot says, speaking as her daughter, Caroline, acts as a translator. "A lot of people worked hard for that movie."

Among them was Aigrot, who performed many of the vocals that Cotillard lip-synched to in the film, under guidance from the actress and director Olivier Dahan.

And while Cotillard may have received the bulk of the fanfare to date, the career of Aigrot -- a veteran stage vocalist with appearances on French TV shows "Qui Est Qui" and "C'est L'ete" -- is being bolstered in the United States thanks to the film.

On March 11, Aigrot's new CD, "Words of Love," was released domestically on LML Music. It features Aigrot singing 19 Piaf songs, and to support the album, she has two tours planned in the United States.

The first will take place April 4-10 in Borders bookstores in New York; Chicago; Ann Arbor, Mich.; San Francisco; and Los Angeles. (Borders is a nationwide distributor of the album.) In July, Aigrot will return to the States to perform in jazz clubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, according to LML owner Lee Lessack.

"There's such a mystique about Piaf that people really want to meet Jil, because her performance is eerily like a modern embodiment," Lessack says.

Aigrot's resurgence started when she got the gig as Piaf's voice for "La Vie En Rose" in a most serendipitous way. In her tours around France and Europe, Aigrot had long performed some of Piaf's songs, and she decided to prepare an entire concert dedicated to the singer.

While working on the project, she attended a book signing at a library by Ginou Richer, longtime secretary and confidante of Piaf -- who died in 1963 -- and the author of "Edith Piaf, My Friend." Aigrot mentioned her concert preparation to Richer, who insisted she sing some of Piaf's songs on the spot. "She said, 'Wow, in 40 years I have never heard someone so much like Piaf,"' Aigrot recalls. "She called Olivier and said, 'I have someone for you!"'

Within two weeks, Aigrot was in Paris recording Piaf's songs for "La Vie En Rose."

The "La Vie En Rose" movie soundtrack, which was released in May 2007 by EMI Classics, contains remastered original recordings by Piaf, as well as score selections composed by Christopher Gunning and a few select tracks performed by Aigrot and Maya Barsoni. It has sold 42,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

And while "La Vie En Rose" has renewed interest in the singer among casual fans, Aigrot says that she's surprised at the intensity of the core group of Piaf followers. One recently gave her Piaf's medal of St. Therese, which Aigrot now wears as a pendant onstage. "It's a consecration to record something for Piaf," she says.