Christmas crooning in two
languages
The Globe and Mail, Dec 8 2000
SARAH BOHAN
TORONTO -- Can it be true? Yes, er, oui,it is: Roch Voisine, the one his fans call "Le Beau Roch," is even better-looking in person than he is in his photographs. At 37, the native of St. Basile, N.B., still has the sharply chiselled features and shock of dark hair that made him a singing star (six-million records sold) in Quebec and parts of Europe.
As he enters the upper level of a chic Toronto restaurant, patrons clear away to let him through, partly because he seems intent on reaching his goal -- namely this interviewer -- and partly because of his mesmerizing stature. Now, if only that appeal can translate into record sales in the English market.
Five years ago, Voisine was being touted as the male equivalent of Celine Dion -- that is, a Montreal-based artist whose appeal could cross over, big time, into the English-speaking market without losing his fan base in Quebec. It didn't happen. Or perhaps the more polite way to put it is that it hasn't happened yet.
He's hoping his first English-language recording in four years, a seasonal effort titled Christmas is Calling, can help get that process under way. "I have been away from the English market too long," he admits. The death of his manager and friend, Paul Vincent, from a drug overdose in 1997 was the equivalent of a hard left-hook to his career. "I found myself alone in a world infested with sharks and the first harpoon master was gone to keep those sharks away and watch my back. Kissing Rain [released in late 1996] started to have a lot of success in Germany and England and I was supposed to go and do a lot of work there. But there was no way I could have done that on my own and I had to pull back."
Regardless of its limited release and promotion, Kissing Rain still managed to sell more than 200,000 copies. In the meantime, Voisine was taking care of business, buying out his partners and restructuring his label, RV International.
"It's extremely hard to be behind the microphone and behind a desk," Voisine confesses. "There are two different realities, two different worlds. Its good for an artist to know about that reality. Good managers are put on this planet to prepare artists without ruffling their feathers. That's what my manager did for me 12 years ago when I started. They prepare their artists for what's coming up without scaring them because it's extremely scary out there."
Voisine is under no illusions that his newest English-language release is going to put him on top of the charts here. After all, everyone does a Christmas recording now. Rather, his intention seems simply to reach out through song, pictures and stories to share his memories and feelings about the season. "Everybody had a Christmas; everybody has photographs of them in front of a silver Christmas tree," he says with a laugh. "It was the fashion in the sixties, wasn't it?"
Paul Fisher, program director of influential Toronto FM radio station CHFI, thinks the Christmas CD "is a step in the right direction. At least it gets his name back out there on the radio, playing to one million people per week at an important time of the year."
Fisher thinks Voisine's career still has legs in English Canada. That's why the station is broadcasting a one-hour concert featuring Voisine on Dec. 17. Moreover, "we're still playing two or three songs from his last English album, and two or three songs from his album before that. Voisine has what it takes: He's intelligent, good looking, and has great stage presence."
Voisine notes that his first English-language hit, 1993's I Will Always Be There,became "the wedding song of the year," while its followup, Lost Without You,was "the number-one song in strip joints. . . . It's funny how two songs from the same recording can pan out that way."
So far, sales of Christmas is Calling in English Canada have been steady, so far totalling about 35,000. He's also got a French-language CD out, titled L'album de Noël, but it's interesting to note that many of the French-language stations that received Noël also requested a copy of Christmas is Calling.
"A lot of my English records are sold in Quebec, but I think that only diehard fans buy my French albums in English Canada," Voisine explains. Besides, "the French-Canadian audience has their own traditions and songs. I don't sing the same in French as I do in English."
In France, Voisine's bilingualism doesn't translate at all. "In France, if you are a French artiste, they want you in French, and that's it," he says. ". . .
They feel something in their own language that they wouldn't if you sing in a different language. They are a bit like the English."
Roch Voisine plays Toronto's Massey Hall tonight and Saturday, with followup dates in Hamilton (Sunday), Ottawa (Monday), Halifax (Dec. 16), Quebec City (Dec. 20) and Montreal (Dec. 21-23). A CBC-TV special is on Dec. 17.