He had a funny face that often bothered him, all teeth and smiles. Add this need for infinite love, this emotionality on the surface of the eternally anxious, this voice both nasal and captivating which had become rounder with age. His uneven but pearl-strewn repertoire weaved his baroque legend between two dandelions and three hundred trash cans. Gone is Jean-Pierre Ferland, who accompanied the footsteps of his people since the dawn of the Quiet Revolution. After the troubles of declining health, the Montreal singer-songwriter with a big laugh died Saturday of natural causes, at the age of 89. In his soul and in his head, the little king of yesteryear fell silent.
Many Quebecers know the words of dozens of his compositions by heart as they have resonated everywhere over the decades. They will have seen him display in his buttonhole like macadamia flowers his weaknesses, his passions, his love of women and the public, his talents as a lyricist, his eclecticism, his reversals of fortune. If his strong romanticism and his histrionic side irritated many, the generosity of the man, the quality of a large number of his texts, his charisma and the fever of the stage beast rallied many hearts.
Those like me who attended his farewell show in January 2007 at the Bell Center among 14,000 spectators, broadcast on giant screens to compensate for the smallness of the stage in the distance, were not entitled to his best performance. His voice often failed him. But his official farewell to the stage moved everyone. “My music, my treasure / do you still love me?” » he asked with palpable emotion.
Less rocker than Charlebois, in perpetual quest for renewal, he knew how to jump from French influence to the country vein, to folk, to rock, to pop. By turns melancholic, frenzied, in love, fanciful, urban singer, surrounded by excellent musicians. Ferland loved riding the waves in front of his view. Poet with Vigneault, from head to butt with Ginette and swing with your company.
His name will be remembered above all as the one who created a bridge between the lyric song and a more popular art. The singer of the magnificent Your face (taken over by Félix Leclerc) and The immortals crossed a sort of Rubicon in 1970. His album YELLOW, whose success he hardly anticipated, was a thunderclap still vibrant in the annals of Quebec musical heritage. Ferland brilliantly knew how to renew rhythms and themes at André Perry’s famous studio. And beyond the squabbles with the technicians and musicians, this bad recording moment gave rise to a mountain. A triumph! The following year, his vinyl Sun looked forward in the same way: “If we just got started,” he intoned.
Years later, when the filmmaker Jean-Claude Lauzon, as direct as he was indelicate, criticized him on the air for having denied YELLOW by adopting “the style poodle “, the singer’s heart broke. It must be said that he enjoyed wearing the hat of a TV host during the 1980s, Sun station and others Red carpet. Too obsequious in this way, disappointing those who remained attached to his best flights. But the criticism affected the artist, who never stopped doubting himself.
Prophet in his country
Born in Montreal in 1934, passionate about song and music, learning the guitar and letting himself be transported by the immortal ballads of Félix Leclerc, he played for a year at the Anjou theater with Clémence DesRochers at the turn of the 1960s. glory came in 1962 after he won the grand prize at the International Song Gala in Brussels with Mistletoe leaves. Ferland performed for a long time in Europe as well as in Quebec, inhaling the air of Paris which stretched out its arms to him, returning to Montreal singing “Make a fire in the fireplace / I’m coming back to our place”. Without abandoning singing tours abroad, but ultimately above all a prophet in his country.
In 1976, the memorable show given in Quebec and on Mount Royal alongside Vigneault, Charlebois, Deschamps and Léveillée, 1 time 5, will have been a jewel in his crown. In 1989, his opera Gala at the Place des Arts, on the muse of Salvador Dalí, turned out to be a monumental flop. His propensity to get into trouble got him into trouble, as during his performance with Ginette Reno at the wedding of a member of the Hells Angels in 2000, an episode later mentioned in a wink to spice up his shows.
He was constantly bouncing around, taking the stage everywhere, recording so much and more, welcoming many female artists, whose talent he celebrated by bringing them on stage. In a duo notably with Nanette Workman and Ginette Reno, this team man reached out to others and refused labels. The singer of yesteryear courted a wide audience of all generations on stage and on the small screen. The longevity of his career came in several stages. Always hot during the 1990s with his album Blue white blues and his songs You are beautiful And Montreal is a woman, again during the new century. The former heartbreaker had transformed into an ardent feminist well before the #MeToo movement.
Ferland never loved the spotlight as much as when it illuminated other artists in his company. For this generosity as for everything else, his departure saddens the cultural community as much as the public. “When I cut the string / put me in a trash can,” he asked in The cat from the artists’ café. No way ! Because Quebec will keep it on its lips and ears for a long time. Songs live.