45 f Quebec Rising


Adored abroad, but largely ignored at home – it’s the fate of traditional musicians the world over, and no different in Quebec. Tony Montague talks to Galant Tu Perds Ton Temps and Revéillons!


T


he songs and tunes are in full flow, and empty glasses line the tables of the artists’ lounge. Le Vent Du Nord, Les Mononcles, Réveillons!, Galant


Tu Perds Ton Temps and Les Charbonniers De L’Enfer have just ended the opening evening of the Mission Folk Music Festi- val, arms linked in a line singing har- monies to a song by genial veteran André Marchand with the chorus “J’aime le vin, l’amour, mesdames, j’aime le vin”. The resonance is unbelievably rich and deep, and backstage afterwards it’s evident the sentiment was heartfelt.


Libations begin, and more music quickly follows. For five leading outfits from Quebec to be on the same festival bill is rare even back home, but on Canada’s


Galant Tu Perds Ton Temps


West Coast it’s unique, and calls for cele- bration in the grand old style. Jacinthe Dubé, whose dancing eyebrows tell you all you really need to know about the song she’s singing, breaks into one of the comic tongue-twisters the Québécois love so much, and the others fearlessly pitch into the refrain. Then Michel Faubert and Jean-Claude Mirandette deliver an old ballad. Over to Josiane Hébert and Mia Lacroix for a turlutte (mouth music). In another corner the tunes are happening. Fiddler Olivier Demers and accordeonist Réjean Brunet launch into a set of reels, soon joined by Jean-François Berthiaume thumping a bodhran. A quadrille of dancers forms swiftly – et ça swing!


Thanks to the spirit and joie de vivre of its singers and musicians, Québécois folk is


gaining new fans on every continent. But the picture isn’t all rosy back home. As in so many places, the great majority of people in Quebec regard their heritage with a mix of amusement, embarrassment, and dis- dain. For the artists, the gigs are few, the distances between them often great.


“Traditional folk has a pejorative image, created by the media in particular,” says Josiane Hébert, co-founder of female a cappella group Galant Tu Perds Ton Temps, interviewed at a café terrace in Montreal, a couple of weeks before Mis- sion. “You often see adverts poking fun at folklore, using all the big clichés – the cein- ture fléchée [a woven sash worn by early settlers], wide-checked shirts, wooden spoons, and the rest. That’s sad. There’s so much else, it’s incredibly rich and deep.”


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