Renée Martel, 1947-2021 | The country queen dies

Renée Martel, the indisputable queen of Quebec country, also nicknamed the golden cowgirl and performer of the great success A love that doesn’t want to die, took his last breath on Saturday afternoon. She was 74 years old.

André Duchesne
Press

After a career spanning more than 60 years, marked by countless successes on records and on stage, but also by illness and grueling personal tragedies, the singer died at the age of 74 from severe pneumonia unrelated to the disease. COVID-19, at the Honoré-Mercier hospital center in Saint-Hyacinthe.

“Few of the artists in Quebec have a track record as impressive as that of Renée Martel. With more than 65 years of career and rich in an exceptional career, she has, for a long time, left an indelible mark on the history of Quebec music with a repertoire that combines both modernity and respect for traditions ”, indicated its producer by press release.

Due to failing health, the last few years have been a reflection of this eventful life. Renée Martel, however, shows resilience by releasing new albums and continuing to sing.

So, on Monday, June 3, 2019, she announced that she was struggling with breast cancer. The initiation of medical treatment results in the cancellation of his tour Golden cowgirl, my story.

However, she made an exception on Saturday September 14 when she climbed on the boards of the Country Club Desjardins at the Festival de St-Tite to participate in a great show with Paul Daraîche, Marc Hervieux, Laurence Jalbert, Annie Blanchard and many others. .

“Even if she was not overflowing with energy – which is understandable because of her illness and the treatments – the septuagenarian was all smiles and was greeted like a queen by the thousand spectators who came to see her”, then wrote the journalist Matthieu Max-Gessler in The Nouvelliste.

“I couldn’t cancel St-Tite, it’s like sacred for me. I am there every year. It is a duty for me to be there, ”she confided the day before at the microphone of Penelope McQuade.

And this fighter had not said her last word. At the end of December 2020, in a lengthy interview published in Featured Echoes, she said not only in remission but that she was preparing a comeback in 2021 in addition to preparing a new album with Paul Daraîche.

“I’ve been taking singing lessons every week for two months. With what I just went through, my voice was no longer the same, ”she confided to journalist Samuel Pradier.

The beginnings

Daughter of two country singers, Marcel Martel and Noëlla Therrien, Renée Martel was born in Drummondville on June 26, 1947. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she accompanied her parents on stage.

She was five years old, on August 12, 1952, when she took the stage for the first time at the Théâtre Royal in Drummondville. In the process, she participated in countless tours as well as in the radio show hosted by her father on the CHLT station in Sherbrooke.

The more she approaches adulthood, the more she detaches herself from her parents’ career to lead her own boat. We are then at the beginning of the 1960s. From country, she migrates to pop. Very quickly, she made her appearance on television, notably on the Youth Today program.

A first 45 rpm record, You are my idol, released in 1964. In 1967, she had her first big success with the song Liverpool. Will follow I’m going to London, Come change my life and many others. Her rise is meteoric, to the point where she is the Female Revelation of the Year at the 1968 Artists’ Gala.

Like several other artists, Renée Martel takes American hits to adapt them into French. But she doesn’t just translate words. She often rewrites the songs.

“I wrote the adaptations in French, but I didn’t want full versions, in the sense that I wanted a text of my own, which often had nothing to do with that of the original version,” she said to our colleague Marc-André Lussier in an interview published on 1^er November 2018.

After the 45s come the first 33rpm albums, one of which was recorded in 1971 with Michel Pagliaro. It is also the voice of the latter which announces an aerial departure to the British capital in the song I’m going to London.

The route to these first artistic successes is not, however, devoid of roughness. At 18, the singer is raped by a presenter, she writes in her autobiography Renée Martel, My life I love you released in 2002.

In a relationship with the singer Jean Malo, she also experienced a difficult breakup in 1971. Thus, in the May 8 edition of the popular newspaper Tele-Radiomonde, there are two articles on his health and love setbacks. A first text relates that she lost a big advertising contract due to an emergency operation. A second, signed Michel Girouard, relates that the singer is “overwhelmed by a terrible nervous breakdown” due to her break with Malo.

His meeting Jean-Guy Chapados, bassist and ex-member, for a few months, of the group Les Baronets, marks a new turning point. From 1971 to 1976, Martel and Chapados formed a couple from which a son, Dominique, was born in 1974.

During this period, Renée Martel will release the greatest success of her career, A love that doesn’t want to die, translation of Never Ending Song of Love from the group Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. The hit, which marks a return to country, will be sold in 400,000 copies. From that moment on, Renée Martel’s career is inseparable from this song.

Over the course of the decade, she went on 45 laps, albums, shows, including a first time at Place des Arts. She is also making a foray into the world of animation as she co-hosts the show. Patrick and Renée with Patrick Norman. Both will collaborate many times over the years.

Two stops

The 1980s marked a first stop in the singer’s career, more precisely in 1986 when, recently married to Georges Lebel, father of her daughter Laurence, she moved to Morocco for a few years.

But before that, she will not have been idle. She released four new 33 rpm records, participated in the La grande retro tour with other Quebec artists, published a book, Renaissance: a moving story in which she recounts her struggle against alcoholism, wins two Félix awards for best country album at the ADISQ gala, etc.

She took over the necklace a few years later. In 1992 released the album Authentic made of unreleased songs. Then, from 1993 to 1996, she hosted the show Country downtown at Radio-Canada. This is a great success in terms of ratings.

In 1999, everything came to an abrupt halt. After having mourned the death of her father Marcel, on April 13, the singer announces at the beginning of June that she is putting an end to her career. Recurring bronchial problems make him cough up blood. She underwent pulmonary embolization to curb the disease and retired to her land in the Knowlton region in the Eastern Townships.

This announcement coincides with the launch of the album To my father made up of twelve songs taken from the repertoire of the father with whom Renée had a difficult relationship in the past. This new disc will also collect the Félix for the country album of the year a few months later.

However, she tries to continue her activities sporadically. In 2000, she played her own character in the miniseries Willie by Jean Beaudin, recounting the life of Willie Lamothe. In 2002, she launched an autobiography written with her son, and a compilation. But in June, the disease catches up with her again and she is forced to stop everything.

These years were also marked by a serious skiing accident and a suicide attempt.

The return

But the country queen didn’t sing her last note. After a few years of rest, the lung disease regressed. Inner peace returns. Renée Martel resumes her activities, without imposing an infernal work rhythm on herself.

At the end of April 2006, she launched the album A love that doesn’t want to die where she revisits several of her successes. The album should have been launched earlier in the year but a serious car accident in which she is injured, delays its release.

“Oddly enough, it is perhaps this accident which provoked positive reactions and which gave me the energy to start all over again,” she told journalist Jean Beaunoyer of Press. I still have 15 quality years to live and I intend to enjoy it, have fun on stage and do what I do best in life: singing. I no longer have respiratory problems, I no longer need a pump and I feel better and better. ”

On May 5, 2007, after many years of hiatus, she returned to the stage at the Vieux Clocher in Magog. The room is full and rises at its entrance.

“I was sure that that evening, there would be three cats and a small dog in the room,” she confided to journalist Linda Corbo of the Novelist from Trois-Rivières in an interview published on September 6, 2008. When I went on stage, people were standing, shouting “we love you”. I got so emotional. ”

Other albums will follow, including Inheritance (2008), A free woman (2012), Her father’s daughter (2014) as well as several collaborations with Maxime Landry, Les trois Accords, Gilles Vigneault and many others.

Finally comes the release, on November 2, 2018, of the album The off-season, recorded in Nashville and Montreal under the direction of Carl Marsh. This one is composed of original songs written by his peers.

“I was not really inspired as an author and I still wanted to create,” confides to Press the singer who often wrote her plays. I know the fashion is for covers, but I don’t want to get on that train because there are too many of them. ”

Here again, these years are full of ups and downs. Thus, in 2008, the singer saw another drama, the suicide of her lover. In 2012, she must receive preventive chemotherapy treatments due to a liver dysfunction. His mother Noëlla Therrien died on March 28, 2015.

In addition, tributes are increasing. Deux Félix (country album of the year and show of the year – performer for his album Heritage) in 2009, Lucille-Dumont Prize from the Professional Society of Authors and Composers of Quebec in 2010, Félix Tribute in 2012, a stamp in his image and publication of a biography of Danielle Laurin in 2014, SOCAN Excellence Prize in 2018 .

His song Come change my life is found in the soundtrack of the film Imaginary lovers by Xavier Dolan. same for me Liverpool in the movie… Liverpool by Manon Briand.

In the course of these decades, the love of the public has been permanent. Just like Renée Martel’s unconditional love for her own repertoire. AT Press in november 2018, she said: “I chose all the songs that I have recorded in my career and I love them all, without exception. I always sing them like it’s the first time. ”