The only words from Richard Séguin’s work that Kim Richardson understood when joining his group? “ On the road aggaaiinn She sings from her home in LaSalle on one of her rare days off. On the road again : the chorus of The wandering angelwill quickly become the leitmotif of one of the most sought-after choristers in the province, always called upon to take to the road again thanks to her voice capable of giving back the banana to the most irrecoverable of the grumpy.
Originally from the greater Toronto area, Kim Richardson is in her early twenties when she accompanies her mother, blueswoman Jackie Richardson, and her aunt Betty, for a few concerts with the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir. She chooses to extend her stay in town, after being offered a contract at the Centaur Theater, then meets Hélène Dalair, then conductor of Séguin, who offers her to join the tour. America Day.
“I wondered: ‘Can I stay another year in Quebec, without understanding the language?’ We the road again, that was really all I understood from the show complete, ”she remembers, laughing, visibly astonished by the boldness of her own youth. “It’s lucky that there was bassist Kevin de Souza who was translating little bits and pieces for me. I must have learned the entire show, two hours, in four days. It was a difficult, stressful, but very exciting time. “
Kim Richardson continuously puts on contracts, in the studio and on stage, with Roch Voisine, Julie Masse, Johanne Blouin, as well as on the show Nice and warm of Normand Brathwaite, then one of his most fervent apostles. One of his most fruitful collaborations began in the mid-1990s in Chabada, the talk show of Gregory Charles, unwavering friend whom she finds today in Around midnight, a Télé-Québec cabaret celebrating the effervescence of nocturnal Montreal from the 1920s to the 1960s, in which Oliver Jones, René Simard and Patsy Gallant also participated.
In one of the most moving numbers of the musical special, Kim sings with her mother Summertime, an immortal lullaby in which a parent promises their child that all will be well, of a beauty here strangely multiplied by the age of the mother (Jackie Richardson will be 75 years old in January) and her baby (Kim will turn 56 in December). You have to see them burst into that radiant laugh at the end of their performance, as if they couldn’t believe the gift of their powerful, tangled voices.
“ How do I say this ? Asks Kim, who now speaks excellent French, but who sometimes searches for the right word. “If we laugh at the end of the song, it’s to avoid the ugly cry [les sanglots incontrôlables]. My mother often makes me cry when I sing with her, especially when we sing face to face, eye to eye. My mom, when she sings she is 100% there and the person she is looking at is the only person on Earth. “
The music buzz
Kim Richardson has barely crossed the threshold of majority when a demo to which she had lent her voice to help a songwriter friend finds herself at A&M Records, label with whom she records two new wave 45s, deliciously saccharine. , He’s my Lover in 1985, for which she won the Juno Prize for Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year the following year, then Peek-A-Boo in 1987, for which she received the Juno Best R & B / Soul Recording award. “It was hard to believe, all these prices, so fast. I was wondering, “Is it really that easy?” ”She recalls, laughing again. The answer: no, not at all.
Major differences between Kim, who wanted to continue his collaboration with the creators of these first two singles, and the record company, which tried to impose its own songwriters on him, put an end to the project of a complete album. “I also wanted to write my own songs,” she adds. The negotiations did not work out, it cost me an arm in lawyers to get out of the contract. I was young enough, but tough enough to say to myself, “OK, that’s not a good omen, I’m coming here.” And I was like, “Oh no, never an album again.” I was discouraged. “
It is, however, less out of bitterness than because she is simply over-solicited that Kim Richardson has long postponed the creation of an album of her own. His luminous blues foray Kaleidoscope appeared in 2009, then My loves, a selection of French and Quebec song classics, in 2011. “I had lots of great offers, but often I am told: ‘Madame Richardson, what do you want to sing?’ And I have no idea! I like everything ! To make the decision of which style, which team, all that, I cannot. André Di Cesare had to [regretté producteur de Mes amours] come and get me himself at home, so I can go to the studio! “
But there is also the fact that the demanding work of supporting singer fills with happiness the one who gracefully passes the teeming plateau ofLive from the universe to the choir of There are people at mass, which allows him to regularly taste the bliss of gospel, his favorite genre. “Every time I go amazing Grace, whether I am in a church or an arena, it is as if I am no longer in my body. Even if you don’t believe in God, gospel music makes you believe that there is something stronger than us. “
Kim Richardson is 17, and is at Club Bluenote in Toronto the night Stevie Wonder walks into the room and sits at the same table as the young singer. Her friend urges her to go on stage with the house group: “”Kim, why don’t you go up and sing a song ?”She told me. Are you crazy ? Sing in front of Stevie Wonder? “
“But hey, it was the band about my ex, so I talk to him and I ask him if he knows Master blaster [morceau reggae tiré de l’album de WonderHotter than July]. Except that when I got to the second verse, I had a total blank. I had total blank in front of Stevie Wonder! Singing his own song! So I asked him: “Would you do me the honor of singing with me ? ”, I handed him the microphone and he started to blower [à improviser]. It was an exchange between him and me: I was doing a blow, he was doing a blow. It gave the longest version of Master blasterin the world. The club was on fire, it was total madness. I was buzzed for months after that. Kim Richardson has never ceased to be buzzed by music.