Sylvie-Anne

I’ve noticed these last few months that popular search items for my blog were “60′s French pop” and “Girls in the Garage”. Well, I thought I would make everyone’s life easier.

Here is an artist that appeared on volume 10 of the GITG series, volume 10 being an all French volume. If you have this particular volume, perhaps you noticed the amazing cover artwork featuring two girls cat fighting over a Jacques Dutronc LP? It was drawn by the same talented woman who did the caricature that you see at the top of the page on this blog. Her name is Sophie Cossette, she lives in Toronto, and she’s amazingly talented. When I was doing the Zoï Zoï French pop DJ nights in Toronto (hence the name of this website) in 2005-2007, Sophie generously drew all the posters for us, and featured a different French pop icon every month.

The Sylvie-Anne track on GITG 10 was taken from the same 45 single I’m offering you today. I apologize in advance, as my record is very scratched. In fact, this track almost didn’t make the cut, because of its condition.

The “Retro Jeunesse” website (follow the link to see a photo of her!) says this about her: Sylvie-Anne was born Sylvie-Anne Trudeau, in 1951. She was given the nickname of “Mademoiselle Dynamite”, because her voice and style was similar to another energetic Quebec singing star: Jenny Rock.

This was her first of two singles, and she was accompanied by legendary Quebec musician, Georges Tremblay.

Interestingly enough, the two songs on this single are blatant copies of the Hazlewood produced and Billy Strange arranged Nancy Sinatra covers of “Day Tripper” and “Lies”. In a nutshell, they are covers of covers. And they are great!

If you listen closely (and I mean *very* closely!) to the first seconds of “Un tour dehors”, you can (faintly) hear her clear her throat.

One wonders where she is today and what became of her.

So here’s Mademoiselle Dynamite doing the Beatles’ “Day Tripper” in French (check out GITG 10 for a clearer copy though, oops!) and its B-side, her cover of “Lies”, both done à la Sinatra/Hazelwood.

Sylvie-Anne – Un tour dehors (Day Tripper)
Sylvie-Anne – Reste (Lies)

Érotique PQ!

I thought I would let you all in on this great event, happening in Quebec City this Thursday, July 16, for the Festival Off de Québec.

Call me Poupée will be performing, along with a 15 piece orchestra, songs from 1970s soft core Quebec movies, such as L’initiation, Valérie, Après ski, etc.

The event will also feature my better half Otis Fodder, as well as Satan Bélanger and Mingo of Les Georges Leningrad fame.

In 2007 I posted the Après Ski soundtrack, find it here.

À bientôt!

Claude Dubois

Quebec singer-songwriter Claude Dubois was in the news this week. I won’t go on about it.

In any case, here are some amazing early songs of his. I don’t care what your opinion of him is, I’m just letting you hear for yourself the man’s fine early work. Why? Because it’s damn good, that’s why.

Le Labrador is a masterful, poetic, classic, beautiful song.
His earlier songs like “Sullivan” remind me of Antoine‘s early work. “Evolution” and “Essaye” are friggin’ fantastic late 60s groovers.

Claude Dubois – Je tourne
Claude Dubois – Evolution – Essaye
Claude Dubois – Sullivan
Claude Dubois – Le Labrador

C’est le Go-Go!

Here’s “The In-Crowd” in French (“C’est le Go-Go”), sung by Québécoise Nicole Lord.
I’ve had this 45 for years, and still know nothing about her. No photos, nothing. A little hard on the ears at times when Nicole tries to sustain a note (ouch!), but still a very cool record.

Or maybe I’m always too harsh on these matters?

Bonne année!

Nicole Lord – C’est le Go-Go (“The In-Crowd”)

Après Ski

Here is the complete A-Side of the soundtrack to a 1971 Québec movie called Après Ski, with music by Jacques Crevier & son ensemble. Most people would refer to this movie as “soft core”, but I don’t think it even came close to that. It was, to put it simply, a sex farce with very little content, like the British “Carry On” movies, maybe.

In those days the province of Québec had just gone through the Quiet Revolution and had finally broken itself free from the conservative and manipulative Catholic Church and from the Duplessis government. Sex, drugs, Catholic Church words used as swearing, etc., quickly became socially tolerated. That’s why so many movies like this one started popping up in the province in the late 60s and early 70s (“L’initiation”/”Valérie”, etc.), moreso than in the rest of Canada.

The B-Side of the soundtrack are pop songs by Quebec artists of the time. The movie starred Daniel Pilon (who later became an American soap opera star) and Céline Lomez. Even René Angelil had a small part.

I love how IMDB lists “Fingering” as the first keyword search for this movie.

This record somehow found its way into record collectors’ want lists, and is now worth a ridiculous sum of money because of it. I suggest you just download it here instead.

Le grand Marc
L’âme de feu
Le doux renard
Les yeux brûlants
La course endiablée

Renée Martel sings The Beatles

Here’s someone I love dearly: Renée Martel. Daughter of Québec country star Marcel Martel, she has enjoyed a very respectable career in the 60s as a pop singer, doing quality covers in French of British or American hits, one of my faves being her beautiful cover of “Liverpool” (which was a hit for her in her home province.)

Unlike many other 60s singers trying to keep up with the times, she didn’t fall into the disco craze in the 70s, but rather followed in her father’s footsteps and her first love, country music.

This next track is quite possibly my favorite one. You will recognize the familiar Beatles melody, of course, but as much as I love it, my heart always sinks when I hear it, because the quality of the mix is just so bad, not to mention the pressing makes the whole record sound like a whisper. What should have been a grandiose sounding album was ruined, and whoever is responsible for this will die in “bad music engineer” hell!

Phew! Ok. And now, thanks to digital technology, I managed to crank it up a notch (just a little) so we can at least hear that Wurlitzer Electric Piano (same type used by Barry & The Remains.). Good Lord at least I think that’s what it’s called.

In any case, that’s the best I could do.

French lyrics are by Karo! –>

Renée Martel has suffered two car accidents in the last decade and has rarely appeared publicly since her father’s death in 1999. I hope she’ll come out to play more often.

Renée Martel – Un certain soira>

Tony Roman

Tony Roman and Nanette Workman

Last night a littly birdy flew in my house and said “I read a blog today and it lied to me”. Why, what did it say?”, I asked. “It said it would have a new post about Tony Roman later that day, but that was over a week ago”.

Oh…well what can I say, I’ve been busy. And to make matters worse, since my last post, another great Québec artist, Boule Noire, passed away, only last week. Tony Roman and Boule Noire (Georges Thurston) knew each other very well and Tony Roman was just about to organize a benefit party for Boule Noire, when he himself was told he had only a few weeks to live.

It’s very unfortunate how most people, the public and the media, have a very limited knowledge of Tony Roman’s contributions to Québec’s music history. For most, he was the guy who did that French cover of Manfred Mann’s “Do Wha Diddy” (with the exception of Jean-Christophe Laurence of Mucho Gusto, who wrote about him in La Presse and was invited to talk about him at Radio-Canada’s morning show. If you speak or understand French, you can hear this excellent interview here. – Jean-Christophe was one of the KEY players in the reissue of Les Maledictus Sounds – a Tony Roman and Jean-Pierre Massierra production from 1968.)

I was about to write a gigamantic post about Tony Roman, but a great francophile American blogger called “Tête carrée” has beat me to it. Please read his GREAT post about Tony Roman here.

In the meantime, here are two Tony Roman produced songs from a 45 single of mine. The “band” is called Les p’tites souris du Père-Noël (Santa Claus’s little mice), on the A1 label, but I don’t have much more info than that. I’ve had this for a while and used to only play Le Spa out at clubs, and only a few months ago did I realise that the song Moscou was just as good, if not better. That’s Tony yelling “hey!” at the beginning of Le Spa.

Les P’tites souris du Père-Noël – Le Spa
Les P’tites souris du Père-Noël – Moscou