If I would like to make the best compliment to the singer, it would be: he has his own style.
You hear him singing, and you do not even to know the song - it's Daniel Lavoie.
Bruno Pelletier
Daniel Lavoie: singer/actor is Manitoba’s unknown superstar. 20-07-2011
Daniel Lavoie: world famous, but unknown at home (PHOTO BY MARIE-REINE MATTERA)
In Quebec, singer/songwriter/actor Daniel Lavoie is a bona fide superstar.
«No matter where I go in Quebec everyone knows me. I’m like part of the furniture," he says, chuckling over the phone from his rural home south of Montreal. His fame in France is on the same order and he recently conquered Russian audiences. Yet, when Lavoie comes home to Manitoba, he is largely unrecognized outside of St. Boniface. "It’s great because I can walk the streets here and nobody knows who the hell I am.»With a career spanning some 40 years, Daniel has won dozens of awards, sold millions of record and sold out the biggest concert halls in Quebec, France and across Europe. In Paris he experienced Beatles-like pandemonium.«It was mass hysteria. I’d never had 2,000 people chasing me after a show. We had to find ways to get out of the concert hall without the fans knowing,» he says of one such incident.Despite the adulation and respect he has accrued, he remains connected to his roots.
«I’m a Prairie boy and I always have been,» he admits. «That doesn’t leave you. Being from a small town in Manitoba, and from a minority Francophone community, has affected my outlook on life.»Lavoie was born in 1949 in tiny Dunrea, Man., southeast of Brandon. The son of a grocer and a mother who introduced him to opera, Daniel first encountered French music while attending school in St. Boniface and by becoming involved in Le 100 Nons organization. At the same time he discovered rock ‘n’ roll.
After he graduated from Collège St. Boniface in 1970, Lavoie and some friends set out to play rock music in Quebec.«We did Doors, Beatles, Stones, Al Green. What they wanted in clubs in Quebec was cover songs anyway. That’s when I discovered Quebec,» he says.His timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous.«I was amazed to experience people speaking French in the streets and a whole cultural renaissance going on. It was so liberating. I decided I wanted to be a part of it. It was a very fertile time in Quebec culture. Nothing like that was happening elsewhere in Canada.»He also learned that the key to a successful career was songwriting. He signed to London Records, and his 1974 debut solo album of original songs featured the hit J’ai Quitté Mon Ile. Nirvana Bleu followed, yielding three hit singles, and his career hit the stratosphere with 1983’s Tension Attention selling over two million copies and yielding the hit single Ils s’aiment. The album crossed the Atlantic, where Daniel became a star in France. More hit albums and tours followed.
In 1998, Daniel starred in Quebec songwriter Luc Plamondon’s rock opera Sand et les Romantiques. That success led to a two-year starring role in another of Luc’s productions, Notre-Dame de Paris, which played to sold-out audiences every night in Paris. In 2002, Daniel starred in the musical comedy Le Petit Prince in France for eight months. A recent revival of Notre-Dame de Paris in Russia was a huge success.
«We did it with a symphony orchestra and sold out 20,000-seat concert halls in Moscow and Kiev. I have an official Russian fan club now. I did a solo concert in Moscow last year and had 800 screaming girls. It was wonderful,» he says.Lavoie recently collaborated with several other Quebec performers, setting the poetry of Gaston Miron to music, and the project has earned yet more acclaim - and another gold record.«I like to try different things. It hasn’t always been good for my career,» he says, «but it’s fun for me.»
Apart from recording a new album this summer, Daniel continues to mentor young singer/songwriters.
«The fun part of this business is to try to plug into the people who are coming up. They like my energy because I have something to give them.»He’s also added broadcaster to his lengthy résumé, as he hosts a national music program on Radio-Canada, Sunday evenings from 8 to 10 pm.
«I just play the music I’ve always liked and it turns out that people like it, too,» he says.Has he taken on an elder statesman role in recent years?«My friend, singer Richard Séguin, once said that if you stick it out to age 60 you become ‘venerable’,»Daniel laughs. «There was a time when I was kind of uncool but I’m finding many young people are rediscovering my music.»As for his home province, Lavoie says he gets back «to visit my parents once a year.»And what does he think of the fact the patio at the Franco-Manitoba Cultural Centre is named in his honour?«I guess it’s a case of local boy makes good,» he says.