On Tuesday June 25, Robert Charlebois will celebrate his 80th birthday. In 2024, he is still very present on the music scene. An artist who still honors French-speaking songs.
Twenty years ago, on June 24, 2004, in the middle of a national holiday, I was in Jonquière, where I taught French as a second language at the Linguistic Center of the local CEGEP. So I took advantage of some time off and watched a special show on MusiquePlus which highlighted the 60th birthday of the man who was our first Garou, as Mouffe, his companion and musical accomplice of yesteryear, liked to call him so well. And I said to myself quietly, “It’s still incredible to see the long and fruitful career of this singer-songwriter from Quebec. And to see the passion that he still displayed on stage at three times twenty years old. And now, at 80 years old, he will still be giving shows here in Quebec as well as in France.
Charlebois is our first crazy singing god of the Quebec music scene. With his own words or those, among others, of Mouffe, Réjean Ducharme, Marcel Sabourin, Luc Plamondon or Jean-Loup Dabadie, he invented a new sound. He propelled Quebec rock towards new horizons. He revolutionized Quebec song with extraordinary energy.
50 years ago, on August 13, 1974, aged 30 at the time, Robert Charlebois was alongside Félix Leclerc (60 years old) and Gilles Vigneault (45 years old) on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec for the show that became mythical I saw the wolf, the fox, the lion, on the occasion of the Superfrancofête in front of a crowd estimated at 120,000 spectators. Here is a trio to which we can attribute today the mention of “Holy Trinity” of Quebec song.
And to mark the anniversary of his 80th birthday, I just feel like singing out loud in Charlebois, “My dear Robert, it’s your turn to let you talk about love”.