The Denuy Family | Claude Meunier’s country wedding cake

More than 45 years later Hello Huguette And It’s Christmas, which the faithful of Paul and Paul have never stopped humming, Claude Meunier is launching the western album of his dreams on Friday, with La Famille Denuy, a group of elite musicians who have mastered the art of true goodness without farce country. Report of an evening spent with the least serious cowboys in town.

“We’ll do an Italian sometime, just before the show,” suggests guitarist Jean-Sébastien Chouinard on stage at the Salle Claude-Léveillée, while his colleagues try to integrate, during the sound test, a new verse to a song that they have been playing for a few months now. And Claude Meunier, who doesn’t miss a single one, exclaims in the most Claude Meunier tone imaginable, almost in Dong’s voice: “An Italian? No, a Japanese! »

Welcome to the world of La Famille Denuy, a fictional group created in 1977 by Paul and Paul, in which Claude Meunier and Serge Thériault played two not very smart bards, Noël and Janvier Denuy, for a handful of parody songs.

An idea resurrected, more than 45 years later, thanks to what can be called a bromanceborn about a year and a half ago between Claude Meunier and Jean-Sébastien Chouinard, one of the most beloved guys in the Quebec musical community, the archetype of a good devil and a bon vivant, who notably played with Les Cowboys Fringants, Les Respectables, Daniel Boucher, Lulu Hughes and Cirque du Soleil.

The two men found themselves at the same table thanks to their lovers, the host Virginie Coosa and the president of a public relations agency, Marie-Noëlle Hamelin. “My girlfriend said to Jean-Seb: “Claude makes songs,” remembers Meunier. And he, rather than answering: “Ah, yes, OK”, he invited me to his studio. I sang it to him Cuckold’s Yoddle. And that’s when he decided to bring everyone together. »

There are worse things than that in life

Everyone is Pierre Fortin (Croco Denuy), drummer for Galaxie, Dales Hawerchuk and Cowboys Fringants, Patrick Lavergne (Tournedos Denuy), bassist seen alongside Garou and France D’Amour, Jocelyn Tellier (Doctor Denuy), guitarist for Dumas and many others, and keyboardist Gautier Marinof (Gaugau Denuy), one of the busiest producers in Quebec, behind several of Marc Dupré’s successes.

“Gaugau the eclipsed!” », exclaims Claude, hugging his comrade, who rushes into the room a little late. Our visit coincided with the solar eclipse of April 8, so all the variations of jokes on the subject were obviously made.

An hour later, in their dressing room, the same Gaugau unpacks the posters that he will brandish in the evening during The most beautiful song in the world, a deliberately repetitive, and alienating refrain, in which Meunier invites a perplexed audience to sing his refrain in Spanish, Japanese and German, a request impossible to fulfill. “It costs us about $200 per year for accessories,” Chouinard quips when he sees the signs in question.

But playing with Claude Meunier is worth a lot more. For guys in their forties, forming a friendship with such an icon of Quebec culture is something unexpected.

“I remember, I went up in a tank with Gautier to play tunes at Claude’s chalet,” says Jean-Sébastien, “and I said to him: ‘Criss, we’re still going to Claude Meunier’s house to drink wine, eat steaks and make music. There are worse things in life than that.” »

In Formula 1

At another time, Claude Meunier had the opportunity to share the stage with a certain Michel Rivard. “And I immediately understood why Michel had chosen to do music and not humour,” he emphasizes. It’s so much fun, singing and playing in front of people. »

The dream of a western album has accompanied him ever since, but other small projects have emerged in the meantime (perhaps you have heard of the Ha Mondays! Ha! or a series called The little life). Although Meunier was friends with members of Harmonium, Beau Dommage and Paul Piché, he would not have dared to consider it. “I brought the guys pancakes and they made them into wedding cakes,” he summarizes.

Take back what belongs to him

“There’s a word from time to time that I understand,” jokes during the sound test the legendary (and English-speaking) Rick Haworth, who was replacing Jocelyn Tellier the evening of our visit. Meunier: “That’s good, I too understand a word from time to time in what I sing. »

Despite all this self-deprecation, Alone in my graveLa Famille Denuy’s first album, is not only woven of strictly humorous songs, but of truly good country songs, which also happen to contain fabulously comic lines.

Jean-Sébastien Chouinard, worn out like the Waylon Jennings of the golden years, will spend a good part of the show suppressing his fits of laughter, during the wild interventions of Meunier, who has in his acolytes an audience won over in advance.

Without surprise, Alone in my grave often resembles a Trois Accords album, which makes sense, insofar as the few songs by Paul and Paul made up the repertoire of the first incarnation of the group, when Simon Proulx and Olivier Benoit played on their school stage secondary school in Drummondville.

Today, it is as if Claude Meunier took back from them what he had lent them. Simon Proulx also signs rockabilly The new nosethe story of a poor guy returning from Saguenay with a damaged nose.

We also hear it on Cuckold’s Yoddle and on the Hawaiian Our dog died, a story of a love that smells like a wet mutt. Among the other highlights: Shake your bayoua zydeco that rhymes the words gumbo and risotto, Crazy about youwritten for Roy Orbison, who died “years before we composed this special song for him”, and Anthem of Old Brunswickthe fictional province from which La Famille Denuy originates.

Daniel Boucher offered them My Sandra, a slow country in which another poor guy pleads a misunderstanding about infidelity, a pure fiction without a doubt. Marie-Annick Lépine, Sara Dufour and Mara Tremblay are also on the guest list.

An intense moment with Serge Thériault

Yes, Serge Thériault, the inseparable although elusive partner of Claude Meunier, is also present, a luxury backing vocalist in Hello Huguette And It’s Christmas.

“We made Serge listen to the tounes and there is one as absurd as the others, but a little more serious,” explains Chouinard, speaking of the title track of Alone in my gravein which a deceased person laments, from the afterlife, for not having enjoyed enough of his life.

A song inevitably echoing Thériault’s reclusive daily life: “So I should have lived my life/instead of marinating in boredom/so I should have, so I should have/today I’m marinating in my own juice . »

Claude suddenly becomes more serious. “It was a very intense moment, yes. »

“But it was when Serge came that we really saw the cute Claude Meunier,” remembers Chouinard. We were looking at two old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time, excited to see each other again. Claude laughed and Serge had his awkward little face. »

“Life is so fragile/and death useless”, sings Claude Meunier in Alone in my grave, reminding us that existence will always remain more absurd than its humor. It couldn’t be more country.

The Denuy Family is performing at the Salle Claude-Léveillée at Place des Arts this Thursday, 8 p.m.

Visit the show website