It’s time for honors for three big names in Quebec music. On Wednesday, in Montreal, Marjo, Jean Millaire and Michel Rivard will be officially inducted, during a special evening, into the Pantheon of Canadian Authors and Composers. And everyone accepts this honor with pride, but with humility.
“If I had stopped working, I would say “well, we recognize my heavy past”, but there, in my present case, it is really just an encouragement to continue”, indicates Michel Rivard in an interview with The dutyin the heart of the promotion of the recording on disc of his last retrospective show, Around the block. Anyone who is already in this circle with Beau Dommage sees this solo honor after 50 years of career “like a little velvet”.
The duty also had the chance to bring together in the same videoconference the funny pair formed by the colorful Marjo and the discreet guitarist Jean Millaire. During the twenty years of personal and professional life that they spent together, they created for Marjo or with the Corbeau group dozens of hits which left their mark on the 1980s and 1990s and which still have lasting effects. strong echoes today.
If I had stopped working, I would say “well, we recognize my heavy past”, but here, in my present case, it is really just an encouragement to continue
Jean Millaire grimaces a little when thinking about the ceremony planned for Wednesday evening at the Espace St-Denis, he who loves the stage when he can play there — and who made songs to be able to go on stage. “Let’s see, Jean! says Marjolaine Morin gently complaining from her side of the screen. An induction, I find it beautiful. And I see that as a great step to take, I’m going to be in the big leagues there. Yay! »
It is then pointed out to him that this is obviously already the case. She leans back in her chair. “We always see others as taller than us,” she admits. It is [un métier] dizzying, a little bit. It’s not always equal, there are lots of events that will happen, so you have to live with it, get through it. But that’s life, right? So long live the vertigo! »
Nonetheless, this kind of tribute allows us to take a look back, at the path we have traveled. The 36 songs of the show Around the blockby Michel Rivard, offer in themselves a beautiful panorama of his creation, of Motel my rest, first created before Beau Dommage, to the title piece of the show. “I’m 72 years old, and even my writing is starting to take on a different tone, to be a little more autumnal… even though it often has been,” he says, laughing. When I look at the last ones that I have done, there is also a simplicity, an economy of words which has crept into my writing quite a bit. The songs go more directly to the point, then at the same time, it’s more poetic…”
The paths of the three artists have barely crossed: Marjo is an extra in the music video for Rumors about the cityby Michel Rivard, and the two are collaborators on the disc See you sweet, by Gerry Boulet. But musically, they share a similar approach over the decades: they carry out a kind of dance, an exploration of styles, while keeping a hard core of more or less rock songs. Rivard recounts his admiration in this area for Joni Mitchell, and admits to having navigated his career around “several musical orientations, because we sometimes had the taste of being more electric or of being more electronic”. His famous record A hole in the cloudsin particular, was tinged with the influence of artists like Peter Gabriel, who explored “the possibilities of machines and synths”.
Jean Millaire also recounts having oscillated between different styles of composition, having picked up here and there “like the old bluesmen ! » Bohemianfor example, “it was like an exercise in style” where a desert atmosphere reigns. I know I knowshe, “it was a special request from Marjo, who wanted a song in the genre of Slave To Love », by Bryan Ferry. “ In loveit’s a song in the style of Flash dance, especially the rhythm. For Wild cats, we said to ourselves: “Well, Rod Stewart, he also does country music, so we can too.” In Raven’s time, that wasn’t possible. ” And If needs be, hold ? “It was a bit Tears In Heavenlet’s say,” concludes Millaire.
Michel Rivard rightly believes that Jean Millaire is “in the class of Eric Clapton. It’s the restraint, the right note in the right place, the melodies and the chord progressions, it’s simple, it’s effective and it’s very embodied.” And with Marjo as author and singer, everything was there for success. “Millaire and Morin, it’s a teamit’s like McCartney and Lennon,” maintains Marjo, visibly leaving in the past certain torments that the duo experienced.
The future is still green for Michel Rivard, who is currently filling the rooms with his Round the block. Jean Millaire is content without any frustration to play music in a restaurant in Old Montreal, and from time to time at the legendary Bistro à Jojo. And Marjo, who has been struggling for years to get back into creation without her old sidekick? “So I’m going!” she reveals in a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Yesterday, I took out the music that you gave me two or three years ago, Jean. There are many. And then slowly, not quickly, I think I’m going to sit down, I’m going to go, I’m going to give it a big blow! »
Her Achilles heel is technological, but the author ofIllegal and D’Elsewhere plans to immerse himself in his old ways of doing things, where the ribbon was king, and intends to “patent what”. “That’s what I have to do, because for me to return to work, I have to return to the source, where I was comfortable, where it came out naturally and easily. »
And the texts? “If I fired my computer, you would see that it has paper stuck everywhere. I won’t let go of that, no, I write all the time. »