Josh Taerk – Canadian Folk Music- An extra plume

by hideyourarms/bigguybigcity

Folk songs and instrumental Celtic music were first recorded by French-Canadian musicians in 1920′s. On the Starr, Bluebird, Columbia and Compo labels, around the time of the Veillees du bon vieux temps, several singers and groups such as Charles Marchand, eugene Daignault, Ovila Legare, Conrad Gauthier, Les Troubadours de Bytown, Madame Bolduc and le Quatuor Alouette revived the folk music of yesteryear. Classical versions of Quebec folk music were equally present in vogue. Opera and concert singers eva Gauthier, Paul Dufault, Alexandre Desmarteaux, Joseph Saucier, Salvator Issaurel, Hercule Lavoie, Placide Morency, Sarah Fischer, Jose Delaquerriere, emile Gour, and Le Trio Lyrique (with Lionel Daunais), and the companies La Bonne Chanson (with Charles-emile Gadbois and Albert Viau) and les Varietes Lyriques, offered versions of traditional tunes. In collaboration with Herbert Berliner, producer Romeo Beaudry played a dominant role in the burgeoning French-Canadian music industry.

On the same period, fiddlers Joseph Allard,  Joseph Bouchard, Isidore Soucy, Louis “Pitou” Boudreault, Ti-Jean Carignan and Ti-Blanc Richard recorded reels, cotillions, quadrilles and other dances of French or English origin. The accordionists Alfred Montmarquette, Donat Lafleur, and Philippe Bruneau and harmonica players Henri Lacroix, Louis Blanchette, and Joseph Lalonde recorded similar repertoire. Traditional songs and dances have been continued to be published in Le Passe-Temps, La Lyre, Le Terroir and Le Carillon. In 1927, 1928 and 1930, the CPR Festivals happened in Quebec were notable folk music events.

]]>

There is no doubt that Quebec country music and western music was influenced by the US, but from the 1930′s it began to merge with folk, as demonstrated by the music of Joseph-Ovila LaMadeleine, Oscar Thiffault and Les Montagnards laurentiens. The history of French-Canadian country music has been dates from the career of Soldat Roland Lebrun, in the late 1930s. After Lebrun came to the country music pioneers Paul Brunelle, Marcel Martel, Willie Lamothe, Roger Miron, Levis Boulianne and Bobby Hachey. Closer to the present, La famille Daraiche, edith Butler, Georges Hamel, Renee Martel, Patrick Norman, Stef Carse, Veronic Dicaire, Manon Bedard, Gildor Roy, Mara Tremblay and Cayouche are the best known French-Canadian country-folk musicians.

After a few decades, French-Canadian folk music has seemed to distance itself from its roots, but artists like La famille Soucy, Les Cailloux, Les Cabestans, Les Quatre-vingts, Pierre Daignault, Raoul Roy, Andre Lejeune, Jean-Paul Filion, and Jacques Labrecque kept it alive through popular music.  Due to the formation of Folklore Archives at Universite Laval by Luc Lacourciere, and the television program La soiree canadienne, are two examples of the efforts invested in folk music preservation.

The mixing of styles became more deliberate in the 1970s. French-Canadian and Quebec musicians in that decade and later, such as La Bottine souriante, Garolou, 1755, Beausoleil Broussard, Barachois, Suroit, Le reve du diable, Les Karrik, Cano, La vesse du loup, Barde, Breton-Cyr, Calixte Duguay and Donat Lacroix, employed a hybrid artistic approach. Beginning in the 1990s there was a “trad” folk revival, by the younger generation and in a style said to be authentic, with Les tireux d’roches, La volee d’castors, Les langues fourchues, Le Vent du nord, Mauvais sort, Les charbonniers de l’enfer, La veillee est jeune, Legende and Les chauffeurs apieds. Meanwhile, the revivification of the same popular traditions with a fusion of musical styles as in the pop music of Mes Aïeux, Les Batinses, Michel Faubert, Grand derangement and Quebecissime, was designated “neo-trad.”

The work of these artists is often categorized as “world music.” Conversely, many contemporary Quebec musicians originating from elsewhere produced a repertoire of sounds considered “exotic” in Canada.

Related Lacroix Articles

SPONSORED PARTNER

SPONSORED PARTNER