Music
Songs
Québec blues
(songs in french)
see notes on bottom
click to enlarge
“Québécois” (the French spoken in the province of Quebec, Canada) has always seemed to me to be “tailor-made” for the blues. Like the English spoken in the United States, Quebec is a language that is difficult to assimilate and this characteristic makes it very special. This language has a unique flavor. Quebec is not easily summed up. It is not easily explained. This language can be perceived as chopped, chewed, truncated. On this point, as far as I am concerned, the comparison with the spoken word of the bluesman of the southern United States is obvious. In addition, the geographical location of the province of Quebec places it like an island surrounded by an English-speaking America. This singularity had the effect of tinting its language with a mixture of Anglicisms that are specific to this province. This whole, makes that the Quebecois language and the blues form an inseparable pair. The idea of “Québec blues” had been floating around in my head for quite a while. Not being in a musical environment that would allow me to be in contact with “real” musicians, I turned to technology. Two software gave me the opportunity to realize my ideas, Band in a Box and Logic ProX. I finally had the opportunity to invent blues atmospheres that I have been hearing for a long time. Of course, the influences are multiple and I don't want to deny them. When I talk about influences, I don't think I've plagiarized, but there are undeniably flavors and echoes of Quebec musicians such as Robert Charlebois, Plume, Offenbach and Les Colocs. In addition to singing, I had fun playing, here and there, saxophone and harmonica. I don't consider myself a sound engineer. I mixed the songs by learning with trials and errors, by experimenting, by looking on the internet. However, it seems to me that the general sound of the songs is “listenable”.