Is it the somewhat swampy guitar line that cuts through waters that one would swear were stagnant in Freshwater mermaidthe opening song of this album with the not very titled “ full keb” in itself, Delta Keb Mojo ? The inflections and timbre have some Lafayette in them. English and French rubbing shoulders as if it were normal: “ I’m a long way from your love / and so far from your arms”? The question arises, and the meeting at Duty, on the ninth floor, provides the opportunity: Does Raphaël Dénommé, born in Varennes, established in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, have any Acadian deported to Lafayette in his family history? “Oh no. No way. I’ve been asked this often! »
Record collection in the family, then? ” Absolutely not. I found this on my own when I was young. ” He is 29 years old. When we were born in the middle of the 1990s, when all music is accessible on CD, when the Web is evolving at great speed and allows all the in-depth details, we can very well define ourselves outside of musical news. “You discover the Stones, you find black and white extracts from a TV show where we see Brian Jones and the other guys in the group completely captivated by a huge, extraordinary double bass player called Howlin’ Wolf. You say: wow! It’s okay, the Stones, but him! And then you discover Muddy Waters… And then everything that happened at Chess Records. Phew. The effect it had on me cannot be said. You can feel it. »
A Saint Lawrence for Mississippi
How can it be, even now? This happened a lot in the 1960s. These epiphanies of young musicians, wherever they were. A John Fogerty, from Berkeley, California, made his name singing Born on the Bayou And Green River with his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. Authenticity was a matter of intention, of passion. The fact that the man named Raphaël had a St. Lawrence River for Mississippi did not prevent anything. “There are just fewer alligators. » And the young man recounts how, with little or no money, “at 20 years old, with [s]we sack pack And [s]a guitar”, he went to the southern part of the Southern States to see if he was there.
“I was hanging out in bars in the depths of Louisiana. I wanted to play, but it took a long time. It took a month before they let me board the internship. Even playing in the street wasn’t easy. It wasn’t stupid. Between musicians there, money is hard to earn. I understood there that you can’t go there as a tourist and think that you will fit in. You don’t listen to Muddy Waters the same way after that. »
Emotion in modulation
He has yet to play in the United States. But he has a few hundred local scenes on his resume, a microalbum and three albums of his songs, two in French, one in English, and everything he does is imbued with blues, country, soul. More than ever, his Quebecness is North American. “I like that, horns that rise little by little in a tune, and then it explodes in the chorus, and then you can bring it back to the bare minimum. Listening to the artists who recorded at Stax in Memphis teaches you how to modulate! »
Varying the effects, maximizing the emotional potential, that’s what he did more than ever from one end to the other Delta Keb Mojo, with the expert help of guitarist Ariel Posen. Go listen At the end of the night, experience this moment when the orchestra goes from full throttle to almost nothing. A guitar, a little bass. “The solo he does, you have the space to receive it in your heart, it’s not blended into the whole. » And then it starts again, gradually, until the massive finale. “The idea is to give yourself some breathing space before the last push. »
Building at home
In Polar heart, at the living center of the disc, the melting is long, but inexorable. The intensity increases. Think Try a Little Tenderness, by Otis Redding. But lived in the countries above. “These are the ways I found to build something at home. I don’t know if I’ll end up touring the Deep South. I’d like that, but maybe it’s not necessary. The music is in me. I want to play my songs, that’s all. »
The next album will be produced by Antoine Gratton. “It was with him that I did Hard Times and Broken Mind, in 2021. It was volume 1. We already have tunes for volume 2. Antoine, for arrangements, he’s a genius. I’m already looking forward to it. » Until then, Raphaël Dénommé has shows full of our wetlands (those that we haven’t yet filled in): he will be playing festivals in Quebec all summer long.