The new podcast Not just Celine offers piracy behind the scenes of creating Québec’s flagship albums, described as “relatively left field” compared to famous artists, such as Céline Dion or Ginette Reno. On the menu: works by Boule Noire, Fred Fortin, Richard Desjardins, Karkwa, Lhasa de Sela and Muzion.
Hosted and produced by Sébastien Pomerleau, the Télé-Québec Cultural Factory podcast invites music lovers to rediscover the six albums that have marked Quebec’s music history from a new angle.
The works selected were not necessarily chosen for their popularity, but because they marked a turning point in the careers of the artists who created them, while offering something new to the public. If I can explain the “left field” with another word, I can say “defining“, explains Sébastien Pomerleau.
When we talk about the album The tremors stopped, it’s not Karkwa’s best -selling album, but it’s certainly a turning point in the band’s musical trajectory. If we talk Last peopleit was the album that allowed Richard Desjardins to confirm that he had the right to do it as a work.
The title of the podcast, Not just Celine, is a nod to the diva that everyone is talking about when it comes to Quebec music. Far from wanting to deny the importance of Celine Dion, the little joke invites us to recall other important achievements of artists who may not have achieved the same fame at the national or international level.
Boule Noire, Alabama and the Ku Klux Klan
Each fifteen -minute episode is based on interviews with the artists behind the albums, but also with the people around them at the time. We discovered some anecdotes and memories, which included extracts from the albums in question.
Thanks to the testimony of director Peter Alves, we learned, among other things, that Georges Thurston, alias Boule Noire, recorded his first eponymous album in Alabama, in the United States, on the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, which hosts such artists as James Brown, Paul Simon and the Rolling Stones.
The place is popular with R’n’B fans, thanks especially to the studio’s house band, The Swampers, who have mastered the style to perfection. Muscle Shoals also presented itself as a rare oasis of peace for black people, when the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was still active in Alabama in the 1970s.
According to an anecdote not seen in the podcast, need a compact format, there was a brief confrontation between Boule Noire and the KKK.
Boule Noire goes out to buy something at the store, and [les autres] Heard a very fast oncoming vehicle and the wheels were screaming at the gravel of the entrance to the studio. A vehicle passed quicklyexplanation by Ariane Gratton-Jacob, content manager for the podcast. Boule Noire chased rednecks.
This wrongful venture would result in the intervention of the county sheriff, who would fine the speeders before making friends with Boule Noire and Peter Alves, who are still in contact with him to this day.
A concept that can be rejected almost ad infinitum
In the episodes, which are full of information about the genre, we also learn that Richard Desjardins didn’t really want to have a career in music, questioning, among other things, the quality of his voice. That was before he could compare himself to others.
Someone who doesn’t have a good singing voice, it seems [Salvatore] Adamo or Frank Sinatra, it doesn’t matter. Leonard Cohen, we can’t say he’s an amazing voice, by Bob Dylan, or by Gilles Vigneaulthe explains.
Sa Not just Celine, the La Fabrique culturelle team is holding in their hands a concept that can be replicated in several seasons, due to Quebec’s vast musical repertoire. Sébastien Pomerleau and Ariane Gratton-Jacob have nothing to confirm so far, but they hope it’s just the beginning.
Episodes on Fred Fortin, Boule Noire, Richard Desjardins and Karkwa are available on the La Fabrique culturelle website (New window). The episodes will be live in Lhasa by Sela and Muzion on May 13 and May 20, respectively.
Source: Radio-Canada
