“I want to be able to go to Paris in December if I want to. I want to feel like it’s Saturday every morning. » This is how Claude Saucier foresees the retirement he is preparing to take and which was announced on Saturday, during his popular show It is so good on the airwaves of ICI Musique, took its many fans by surprise.
For someone who began his hosting career in his early twenties, this decision was a long thought process. “I had planned to leave the show after the show tour It feels so good… to dance which was supposed to start in the fall of 2019. But the pandemic forced us to postpone everything. I had a responsibility towards the show team. I told myself that if I let go, everything would fall. The tour finally ended last November, and I figured it was the right time to bow out. »
Claude Saucier talks about the show which was inspired by the jazz and big band sound of his It is so good. It must be said that this popular event also gave birth to three compilation discs, including a Christmas one. The musical universe that he displays every Saturday quickly attracted a large audience.
It is so good has become over time the most listened to program on ICI Musique. In the latest Numéris surveys published before the holiday season, it reached a record with 18.1% market share and was enthroned in the top 20 of the most listened to shows in Montreal, all categories combined.
“I believe that the success of the show is based on the fact that I offered musical content that no one was talking about anymore,” he says. And yet, we owe everything to these musicians. Jazz invents everything that follows afterwards. It leaves Kansas City, Chicago and New York afterwards. It’s great music. You listen to Cole Porter… Those people had genius. »
Many listeners wait for this show to treat themselves to an aperitif (or maybe even two or three) while cooking. The oldest find artists who rocked their youth and the youngest discover these singers and musicians. “I recently learned from one of my bosses that young people are largely there on Saturdays. I thought I was making a show just for old people. »
Claude Saucier cannot help but talk about this show without mentioning the names of his two precious accomplices, the director Alexandre Bernard and the technician Pierre Plante, a man endowed with “a fabulous musical ear”, according to the host who will sign its last broadcast on June 22.
I reassure aficionados of the musical atmosphere that we find at It is so good. The management of ICI Musique intends to continue to provide this niche with a sound that will have the same DNA as that to which we have been entitled for more than a decade, certain sources told me.
Claude Saucier’s career is rich. From his radio debut at age 21 in Sept-Îles and later at CKAC in the 1970s, including hosting Teleservice on the airwaves of Radio-Québec and that of Hi hello at Télé-Métropole, until his entry into Radio-Canada (television and radio) in the mid-1990s, the host knew how to delight these diverse audiences with a warm approach that does without embellishments.
PHOTO ARCHIVES RADIO-QUÉBEC
Claude Saucier (left, bottom row) surrounded by his colleagues from Teleservice
I interviewed Claude Saucier in September 2018, and he told me about the common thread of his career as a radio host. Five years later, he uses essentially the same words. “I’ve always asked myself: who is listening and what do these listeners want to hear? I have always wanted to speak to ears that are strained. I never wanted to impose business on listeners. When I propose a discovery, I want us to do it together. »
Of his 50 years of career, Claude Saucier does not hesitate to qualify his experience as It is so good of the “13 most beautiful years of [sa] career “. “I consider myself an artist,” he says. And for an artist, when you have to do something that involves compromises, it’s boring. With It is so good, I was able to enjoy total freedom, all this with the complicity of management. »
Before leaving Claude Saucier, I asked him to tell me what the young 21-year-old Claude who has thrown himself headlong into a career as an animator would want to say to the person who is retiring. “He would undoubtedly tell him that he was right to dream, that he had the right to do it, even without training. And this young person would tell other young people that you have to go for it when you believe in it. »
And it’s a safe bet that the soon-to-be retired Claude Saucier would say to the dashing young man: “Leave me alone now!” I want to have my coffee while listening to Louis Armstrong! »