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

Gainsbourg covers, part deux

Let’s take a swingin’ breather, shall we? Here are two great Gainsbourg songs by Nana and Pierre, for you to listen to on a rainy Sunday evening. Or whenever.

Alright so Nana Mouskouri and Pierre Lalonde are probably the last names you’d expect to hear when talking about Gainsbourg, but there you go.

I have to say, I’ve only recently discovered Nana Mouskouri’s early Jazz répertoire…what an amazing artist. On this album, she sings Aznavour, Gilbert Bécaud and Eddie Marnay under the direction of Jacques Denjean and it’s divine. Gainsbourg wrote the song “Les yeux pour pleurer” for her. I have no idea how available this is or if it’s been reissued, I just thought I’d share it regardless.

And finally, Pierre Lalonde, a popular crooner type singer who started his career in the late 50′s as a radio announcer in Montreal. He recorded popular French and English hits for the Québec market and even tried his hand at a career in da States by recording an album in English, under the more American name “Peter Martin” (sheesh.)

The album “Jet…Première classe” was an attempt to be taken a bit more seriously (I’m not making this up, it is blatantly written as such in the back cover’s liner notes.). On this album Peter Mar…Pierre Lalonde sings Bécaud, Charles Trenet all under the fine direction of the legendary Georges Tremblayand his orchestra. How the hell a Gainsbourg song (“Quand le soleil est au soleil”) found its way in there is BEYOND me, but it is a nice one!

Pierre Lalonde later established himself as the québécois “Dick Clark” and hosted popular tv music shows for teens in the 60′s like “Jeunesse Oblige”on Radio-Canada.

And I never thought I would say this about a Pierre Lalonde album, but it’s friggin’ good!

Nana Mouskouri – Les yeux pour pleurer
Pierre Lalonde – Le soleil est au soleil

Gainsbourg covers, part 1

In a category I like to call “The poor man’s version of…”, here is Michèle Richard and (what appears to be) Denis Pantis trying to sing the Gainsbourg/Bardot classic “Bonnie and Clyde”. Now, since music blogs and sites like Youtube have started popping up, I’ve noticed that there appears to be a heartwarming love for Michele Richard amongst 60s French pop lovers out there. As someone who hails from the same province as her, I have to say that perhaps the cultural context in which I grew up prevents me of sharing the same affection. I guess it’s the same thing with all the Italians I’ve met (all 5 of them) and their mutual disdain for Rita Pavone. I mean…how can you not love Rita Pavone?!? But I disgress. Let me explain…where I come from, Michèle Richard is known as someone who embraces qualities such as tackiness, trashiness, not too much of a singing talent-ness, and prima donna-ness. Perhaps the Québécoise “Britney”of her days. Just look at the photo of Michèle and her dog! (oh the joke possibilities…) And that was deemed good enough for a record cover! She has famously defecated (yes) in the lobby of a four star hotel in Montreal in the 70s and was arrested for stealing fur coats, twice. She’s had live, on-air prima donna fits on her tacky tv shows in the 80′s and has starred in her own reality tv series a few years ago (in which she gave one of her dogs a funeral and burial).

Oh but don’t be fooled by my writings. It’s a love-hate thing.

In this post we also have Québécoise cutie Denise Brousseau (pictured) singing an upbeat version of “N’écoutes pas les idoles”, with Georges Tremblay and his orchestra. And finally québécoise Maryka doing a GREAT cover of Hold-Up. I unfortunately know very little about her.

BANG! BANG!

More Gainsbourg covers from La belle province in a few days.

Michèle Richard – Bonnie and Clyde
Denise Brousseau – N’écoutes pas les idoles
Maryka – Hold-Up