Nostalgie Poètes

Nostalgie Poètes is one of the odder corners of French radio: a station devoted to sung poetry, chanson, and the spoken word. Georges Brassens and Barbara are the household names here. Léo Ferré, Juliette Gréco, and Jacques Brel show up too, though the real pleasure is in the margins: 1950s recordings of poets reading their own verse, forgotten B-side ballads, live takes where the audience sings louder than the singer. Daytime leans familiar. As French radio goes, that's unusually bookish, and it works. The evening blocks are where it gets genuinely interesting, because someone there clearly o…