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September 13, 2019 3:14 pm  #1


Need help identifying CanCon artists

After a few lunchtime pops, my neighbour and I got stumped on a question. 

How many Franco-Canadian artists, singing in French, have charted in Canada outside Quebec?

Mitzou, Roch Voisine, Celine Dion, Ginette Reno, Daniel Lanois.  Those were all we could come up with.  Groups like The Box or Men Without Hats were generally Franco, but their hits were in English, so they don't count.

There's enough knowledge on this board to be authoritative.... Who else can you name?

 

September 13, 2019 3:19 pm  #2


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

One that immediately comes to mind is Lucille Starr, who had a fairly big pre-Cancon hit in 1964, with a song appropriately called "The French Song." A follow-up, "Jolie Jacqueline" wasn't quite as successful, but did get some airplay in Canada.


  

 

September 13, 2019 3:26 pm  #3


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Toulouse-It Always Happens This Way was a big hit across Canada with mostly french lyrics. They later had a few more hits in english.

Michel Pagliaro- Four or five hits in english and his biggest single, J'entends Frapper went number one on CKWS and CKLC in Kingston back in 1973. Interesting that CFTR and CHAM in Hamilton also playlisted the song but wasn't charted since TR at least didn't put out a chart back then.

 

September 13, 2019 3:32 pm  #4


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Toulouse's On A Rien A Perdre got significant airplay here on CHUM. They only charted its flip, It Always Happens This Way, and that was only for one week, but perhaps On A Rien A Perdre charted elsewhere. Also, The Box's L'Affaire Dumoutier (Say to Me) does have some spoken French in it.

 

September 13, 2019 3:40 pm  #5


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Just thought of a couple of non-francophone artists from Montreal. Andy Kim, under the name Baron Longfellow, sang the chorus of Amour in French. And April Wine (who originally came from NS, but then moved to Montreal) sang the title of Just Between You And Me in French near the end of the song.

 

September 13, 2019 4:02 pm  #6


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Yes I do remember CHUM playing playing the flip of It Always Happens This Way, which is still a bit of a mystery why they did. I was in Montreal when C'est toujour comme ca (Always Happens This Way) was huge on both english and french radio, thought at the time that this could be played outside of Quebec.

Started to get airplay in the rest of the country about six months later and was a big hit when I was working at CKPR in Thunder Bay.

If you listen to some of the french top 40 stations in Quebec, they play a lot of french music that actually is split between english and french lyrics throughout the song. Some of it is really good and could easily be played on stations here. French stations in Canada are regulated to play 60% french music, of which almost all is cancon. They don't play that much from France or Belgium.

I remember in the late 70's and early 80's when some english stations in montreal started to play some of the big french hits from time to time and announcers would break into french, a la Marc Denis. CRTC told them to stop and speak in english. 

The french stations felt they would be at a real disadvantage if english stations started to play the best hit french songs and their announcers started speaking french from time to time. They argued if this was the case they wanted the 60% french music regulation decreased. Interesting to note that even in France, stations are regulated to play 35% french music. It was 40% up until about two years ago.

 

September 14, 2019 12:00 pm  #7


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

thanks for the help guys!

     Thread Starter
 

September 14, 2019 3:27 pm  #8


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Here's a CanCon artist who was also a Can con artist: 

Jim Norman: A Canadian jazz percussionist, producer and composer based in Toronto. Well, right now he's based in Big Spring Texas, where he's serving time for consipiracy to commit wire fraud by participating in a multi-million dollar international advance fee confidence scam through his foundation and Thrum Records.
 

Last edited by Saul (September 14, 2019 3:27 pm)

 

September 15, 2019 5:22 am  #9


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Saul wrote:

Here's a CanCon artist who was also a Can con artist: 

Jim Norman: A Canadian jazz percussionist, producer and composer based in Toronto. Well, right now he's based in Big Spring Texas, where he's serving time for consipiracy to commit wire fraud by participating in a multi-million dollar international advance fee confidence scam through his foundation and Thrum Records.
 

hahaha Saul, nice one.  did he do it in French??

     Thread Starter
 

September 28, 2019 9:33 am  #10


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Hey splunge, another artist for you. Winnipeg's Gisele MacKenzie from 1950, prior to her leaving Canada for the US, had a hit with La Fiacre which was picked up across the country. The single was on the Dominion label.

La Fiacre was re released in the US a year later by Capitol records.  Throughout her successful career on radio, tv and in music, Gisele recorded music in French from time to time. She released a children's album with songs all in French, as well as an all French pop album in 1962.  Her version of Jolie Jacqueline came out in 1951 also on Capitol.

Gisele made a point of telling people that she was born in Winnipeg and not St. Boniface which was Canada's largest francophone speaking city outside of Quebec. St. Boniface merged with the city of Winnipeg in 1972 .She said in an interview that because she was French Canadian and from Manitoba, everyone assumed that she was from St. Boniface.

 

 

September 28, 2019 10:47 am  #11


Re: Need help identifying CanCon artists

Although he wasn't from Quebec, I have a French version of Lorne Greene's "Ringo" on a green RCA International label.