Raquel Bitton

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Raquel Bitton (born in Marrakesh, Morocco) is a French World Music singer and renowned interpreter of songs by Edith Piaf.

Life and career

As a teenager in 1970, Bitton moved to San Francisco, where she began to work on the songs from the French Age d’Or ('Golden Age'). Her passion for music and song led her to the Edith Piaf songbook. Bitton became a renowned interpreter of Edith Piaf's music.

Bitton's hit show, “Raquel Bitton sings Piaf - her story, her songs” has been performed across North America including selling out Carnegie Hall 3 Times. Critic Ann Powers, writing in the New York Times, liked Bitton's low-key treatment as she "served her subject by de-emphasizing the pathos in favour of the craft", using "calm narration". Bitton "did well to concentrate on the great singer as a virtuoso rather than a heroine" as the legend was impossible to live up to, but "a bright interpreter like Ms. Bitton certainly can illuminate it", wrote Powers.

Bitton

Bitton is a village and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, in the Greater Bristol area on the River Boyd.

It is in the far south of the South Gloucestershire district, near the border with Bath and North East Somerset. The parish of Bitton has a population of 9,307, and apart from the village itself, includes Swineford, Upton Cheyney, Beach, Oldland Common, North Common and part of Willsbridge.

Bitton is the birthplace of author Dick King Smith and actress Richenda Carey, home to artist Kate Ward and television presenter Noel Edmonds. The Grange, by St Mary's Church, was once the home of Jane, one of the wives of Henry VIII.

Governance

An electoral ward with the same name exists. This ward does not cover as much of the outskirts of Bristol as the parish. The total population of the ward taken at the 2011 census is 3,509.

Transport

The A431 road runs through the village. Beyond Bitton the road routes north-west to Willsbridge and south-east to Kelston. The heritage Avon Valley Railway terminates at Bitton railway station. The National Cycle Network Bristol & Bath Railway Path runs alongside the railway.