Louis Poterat

Louis Poterat (1901–1982) was a French lyricist.

Life

Poterat was born in Troyes, Aube. After studying law, he began working in journalism, then launched himself into commerce. He first wrote for local revues, where he found his interest in song-writing. He adapted foreign-language works, and entered the film company Pathé-Marconi to write a series of film lyrics. His first great successes dated to the end of the 1930s, and were his adaptations of foreign-language songs into French (J'attendrai, to music by the Italian composer Dino Olivieri, in 1938, sung by Rina Ketty ; Sur les quais du vieux Paris, to music by the German composer Ralph Erwin, the first success of the singer Lucienne Delyle, in 1939). In 1943 he wrote Valse des regrets to Johannes Brahms's Waltz in A-flat major (number 15 in his Opus 39, Sixteen Waltzes for piano), which became a great success for Georges Guétary. At the end of the 1940s he frequently collaborated with Henri Bourtayre, notably on the operetta "Miss Cow-Boy". He died in Geneva.

Sources