When one reflects on the circumstances that have brought him or her to their current lot in life, one question inevitably pops up: what if?
For singer-songwriter Roch Voisine, a serious baseball-related injury suffered in 1981 derailed his ambition to play professional hockey. It was no doubt a shattering blow for the then 18-year-old.
What if Voisine had realized his hockey dream? Chances are the 55-year-old would have by now long hung up his skates, his scoring statistics relegated to the endless lists of numbers that provide daily fuel for hockey trivia buffs. But if Voisine possesses any lingering disappointment over what could have been and wasn’t, that’s more than offset by the success he’s achieved in his musical career.
On Tuesday, March 5th, Voisine brings his Canadian acoustic tour to Showplace Performance Centre (290 George Street North, Peterborough), promising an “unplugged and intimate evening” where he will be accompanied by two guest musicians to perform the hit songs that have formed the basis for an impressive 22 albums to date and endeared him to million of fans across Canada and Europe.
Tickets to the 8 p.m. Showplace Presents concert cost $47 and are available in person at the Showplace box office (290 George St. N., Peterborough), by phone at 705-742-7469, or online at www.showplace.org.
It was while studying for a degree in physiotherapy at the University of Ottawa that Voisine, having picked up the guitar to fill the void created by his dashed hockey dream, dabbled in songwriting. It was during the same period that he co-wrote the song “Hélène” with his hockey pal Stéphane Lessard.
VIDEO: “Hélène” – Roch Voisine
While his performance debut came before 50,000 people gathered for Canada Day in Montreal in 1986, it was that ballad of love found and lost — the title track on his 1989 album of the same name — that propelled Voisine into the musical stratosphere.
“Everything just went boom,” recalls Voisine in a 1992 interview with Barry Came of Macleans.
Boom indeed. The album — it was actually Voisine’s third after two earlier recordings — spent 40 weeks in the top 10 albums listing in France, achieving Diamond status for more than one million units sold.
In Canada, Hélène was certified three-times Platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). The single, meanwhile, remains Voisine’s top-selling song, spending nine weeks at #1 on the singles chart in France, making him the first Canadian to attain #1 on that chart, well before Bryan Adams, Céline Dion, and Garou did likewise.
“I think we managed to put together some good lyrics with some good music that just happened to catch the public mood,” says Voisine of the album’s huge popularity.
“And it might have had something to do with the fact that they find me a little exotic in France in that I’m a North American who speaks French. To tell you the honest truth, I don’t really have an adequate explanation beyond all of the usual tired old clichés about having the right stuff at the right time.”
VIDEO: “Catch Me” – Roch Voisine
Voisine would have a treasure of “right stuff” for years to follow.
In the aftermath of the success of Helene, which brought him Francophone Album of the Year honours at the Victoires de la Musique Awards in France and honorary title of the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as awarded by the French government, Voisine embarked on his second European tour, appearing before thousands.
On Canadian soil, enthusiasm for his singing and songwriting talent was no less over the top, highlighted in 1992 by his July 1st performance in Montreal before Queen Elizabeth II.
VIDEO: Roch Voisine – An Unplugged and Intimate Evening
Recording and performing in both French and English, Voisine has had, and continues to enjoy, the advantage of appealing to a huge dual audience, with his English-language recordings remaining a popular staple of Canadian adult contemporary radio.
Made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1997 as well as a Member of the Order of New Brunswick in 2014 — he was born in Edmunston and raised in Saint-Basile and currently divides his time between Montreal and Paris — Voisine has enjoyed consistent commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic.
His subsequent albums Double (1990), Roch Voisine (1990), I’ll Always Be There (1993), Coup de Tete (1994), Kissing Rain (1995) and Americana (1995) have attained Platinum and multi Platinum status as awarded by the CRIA. In 1994, he claimed the Male Vocalist of the Year prize at the Juno Awards.
VIDEO: “Tant Pis” – Roch Voisine
In November 2017, Voisine’s most recent album Devant Nous was released, marking a much heralded return to the pop music genre he had abandoned for the better part of 10 years.
“I realized that if I wanted to make something meaningful, that will reach people where they’re at right now, I needed to go back to pop … life changes and we no longer touch people in the same way,” he tells Claude Côté in a 2017 interview for SOCAN Words & Music.
“One thing I knew for sure was that there weren’t going to be a lot of ballads or sappy love songs. I had a head full of songs that make you want to move. My problem wasn’t that I’d lost my drive to write songs, but rather that I wanted a more meaningful musical format.”
“You get to a point in life where you want to reach out to more than a small group of people with your songs…more universal themes and looking to the future. It’s possible to make intelligent pop songs and I believe these 10 songs are proof of that.
“If you want radio play but don’t do pop songs, well, good luck. Markets are different from one country to the next, and at the centre of the Francophonie. What I want is to play everywhere. Radio in France is transforming, looking for an identity, while here (in Canada) we’re lucky because there’s still adult-oriented radio that gives some space to its artists.”
In addition to his acoustic tour, Voisine is also touring with fellow singers Corneille and Garou as “Forever Gentlemen”, where the trio perform classic crooner tunes from the ’50s and early ’60s.
For more information about Roch Voisine, visit rochvoisine.com.
