Our great national diva was once again the first to embark on a path that almost no Quebec artist had trodden before. Diane Dufresne landed in Calgary last Thursday night and certainly said, “Get the hell out of here! I’m coming! Eligible for induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. It took 45 years and 65 convocations for the organization, which seeks to represent the best Canadian musicians, to accept an artist who sings in French into its pantheon. Luc Plamondon existed as a lyricist in 1999, but he’s still stuck in the old days.

Louis-Jean Cormier and his Karkwa band were aware of the significant cultural divide between Quebec music and the music of English Canada. This influential rock group, who built on friendships formed at Montreal’s Cégep de Saint-Laurent, announced their big comeback this week after more than a decade of absences from the stages and listeners. A new song heralds an upcoming album and string of highly anticipated shows.

Shortly before this break, journalist and documentary filmmaker Noémie Mercier followed the musicians News in a way Canada tour. The English-Canadian public’s deaf ear to Quebec rock, in this case in French, is one of the main themes of this lengthy report published in September 2011 and the subject of our article Mirror of the week. The members of Karkwa, big stars in Quebec, laden with prizes and accustomed to full houses, were struggling to break through the wall of indifference in the Outaouais during the writing of the report. From seedy haunts to abandoned bars, a few nice halls around the corner, but for a fraction of the cachet offered in Quebec, this ‘brown’ tour, as the Karkwa boys call it, was far from a success. Enough for the record to ask the question: were these the last arrows of Karkwa?

However, in 2006 the group won the Polaris award, one of the highest honors in Canadian music, awarding the best album of the year. Like other Quebecers before and after him: Patrick Watson, Kaytranada, Arcade Fire, Feist… With one difference: they sing in English. The fact that a formation rocking in the language of Gerry Boulet won such a trophy caused a sensation: the Toronto press even questioned the legitimacy of this choice, Noémie Mercier recalls, and suspected preferential treatment…

This spring of 2011, the exhaustion of struggling to survive outside of Quebec begins to overwhelm the group’s members. “We have songs on the bank and the desire to record is there,” Louis-Jean Cormier swore. But it could be disastrous if we keep squeezing the lemon. So let’s treat ourselves to the luxury of rest. The most important thing is not to have a serious plan, no schedule, nothing. Leave the doors open. And let the air in. »

And now, 12 years later, we are entitled to some fresh air from Karkwa!

Happy reading and Happy National Patriots Day.

Eric Grenier, deputy editor

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