Franco-Americans--New England
French-Canadians--New England
Folk Songs, French--Québec (Province)
Franco-Americans--Music
French-Canadians--Music
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1071) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné.
VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1071 interview with Alberta Gagné. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Full Interview: vfc1998-0005_tc1998-1071
sound cassette (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
sound recording
text
Vermont (state)
New England (general region)
Quebec (province)
Highgate Center (inhabited place)
Depuis plus de trois cents ans [First line] (AU1998-1071-001a)
Folk Songs, French--New England
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1071-001a) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Depuis plus de trois cents ans” (“For more than three hundred years”) is a 1932 song written by Gaspé-born Montreal singer, songwriter, jaw harp, harmonica and fiddle player Mary Travers Bolduc (known affectionately to her audiences as “Madame Bolduc” or simply “La Bolduc”), titled “As-tu vu l’éclipse?” commemorating a solar eclipse which occurred on August 31, 1932. The verse has the same melody as another Bolduc song, “Le voleur de poule” which La Bolduc recorded in 1939 on the Starr label. Ah! Madame Bolduc did not record “As-tu vu l’éclipse?” but she did apparently sing it in public, either on the radio or during one of her many tours with the Troupe du bon vieux temps, a vaudeville-style touring group which toured in Quebec and Franco-American New England in the 1930s. Alberta Gagné learned this song from one of her cousins.
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-059 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 103-105. “Tout doucement” [“Tout doucement”; “So Softly”] is a song composted by French poet, songwriter, sketch writer, and singer André Chenal (1884-1939). The earliest known French printing of this song is a sheet music edition published in Paris by L. Billaudot ca.1918, though it is possible that the song dates back from the early 1910s. The earliest known commercial printed setting in Quebec was published in Montreal by Edition Alfred Nohcor ca. 1920. In 1920, Montreal actor, pianist, and baritone Hector Pellerin recorded this song for the Victor/His Master’s Voice label (issue # 263041, side A). Pellerin recorded over 140 wax cylinders and 78-rpm discs between 1916 and 1928.
VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-027 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 49-50. Strophic song; two verses followed by same refrain. “Malgré tes serment” [“Malgré tes serments” ; “Despite your Vows”] is French songwriter-composer Henri Christiné’s French-language translation of the popular American song, “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” with music by Harold Orlob and lyrics by Will M. Hough and Frank R. Adams. The American song was first published in 1909 and was popular on the American stage, in films, and on sound recordings through the first half of the 1900s. Born in Switzerland, Henri Christiné ( 1867-1941) rose to fame after WWI as a talented lyricist, songwriter, and operetta composer in Paris, where his sparkling, witty, jazzy musical plays were well received by musical theater-goers. In 1920, Montreal baritone, pianist and actor Hector Pellerin (1887-1953), recorded a 78rpm of Christiné’s setting of “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” on the Victor His Master’s Voice label (issue # 263039, side A), distributed by Montreal’s Berliner Gram-O-Phone Company. Pellerin recorded over 140 wax cylinders and 78-rpm discs between 1916 and 1928 and recorded several Chistiné songs on the Columbia, Starr, Edison, and His Master’s Voice labels (see MS2011-3222-027 for reference to another Christiné song recorded by Pellerin).
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-021 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 39-40. Strophic song; two verses, one refrain after first verse. “Lamour pardonne” [“L’amour pardonne; “ “Love Forgives”] is a transcription of Roméo Beaudry’s French-language setting of the ca. 1924 song “Love Will Forgive,” with lyrics by African-American pianist and band leader Millard G. Thomas and music by Montreal pianist, composer, conductor, and music editor Fred Carbonneau. Millard G. Thomas was an African-American band leader who found his way to Canada via Chicago sometime around 1918. He was employed as the pit-band director for the vaudeville shows at the Princess Theater in Montreal. In 1919, he led his Famous Chicago Jazz Band at Montreal's Palais de Danse. From 1920 to 1922, they were the pit-band at the Starland Theater in Montreal and are also known to have played in Quebec and in New Hampshire. The orchestra went on to play at the Mount Royal Hotel in Montreal and to be broadcast on radio station CKAC. Thomas continued to lead bands in Canada until 1926 when he moved to New York. Montreal songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry took Carbonneau’s music and paired it with a set of original lyrics under the title “L’amour pardonne.” Montreal baritone Hercule Lavoie recorded Beaudry’s setting of this song for the Starr label (issue # 15169; matrix # 1368) in 1924. Montreal baritone Hector Pellerin recorded a second 78 rpm setting for the Victor/His Master’s Voice label later that same year (issue # 263190). Carbonneau published a bilingual sheet music setting of the song in 1926 via his newly-founded Montreal-based Popular Music Publishing Co.; a 1924 English-language version of the song was published in Sydney, Australia was published by W. H. Paling under the title “Love will Forgive.”
Une larme pour un baiser (MS2011-3222-011)
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-011 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 21-23. Strophic song with two verses and a refrain between them. “Une larme pour un baiser” [“Une larme pour un baiser”; “A Tear for a Kiss”] is Quebec songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry’s French-language setting of “Crying for You,” a 1923 American popular song with words by British-born lyricist, songwriter, publisher, and actor Ned Miller (1899-1990) and popular music composer and publisher Chester Cohn (aka Chester Cohn, 1894-1963). Miller and Cohn may have been trying to ride the wave of their hit song of the previous year, “Why Should I Cry Over You.” “Crying for You” seems to have had more modest success, although it appears in at least two printed sheet music publications in 1923. You can see one of these at the University of Maine’s Digital Commons website: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3175/ Beaudry’s lyrics are unrelated to Miller’s. Beaudry (1882-1932) was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, Beaudry’s Montreal-based Starr studio produced 693 francophone records, featuring almost every great name in Quebec lyric, folk and variety song with equal success. He also produced songs with original lyrics and melodies as well as French-language translation of popular American hits of the era. In 1923 Montreal baritone J.-Hervé Germain recorded Beaudry’s setting in the Montreal Compo studios (issue # 12100; matrix #1001). Montreal baritone Hervé Pellerin also recorded this song for the Victor/Berliner label in 1924 (issue #263178).
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-007 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 13-16. Scope and Content Note: Strophic song, two verses with two refrains “Parfun du soir” [“Parfum du soir”; “Evening Perfume”] is a popular song composed by French song and operetta composer Henri Christiné (1867-1941), first published in sheet music form in Paris in 1917. Born in Switzerland, Christiné rose to fame after WWI as a talented operetta composer in Paris, where his sparkling, witty, jazzy musical plays were well received by musical theater-goers. In 1919, Montreal baritone, pianist and actor Hector Pellerin (1887-1953) recorded a 78rpm of this song on the Victor His Master’s Voice label, distributed by Montreal’s Berliner Gram-O-Phone Co. Pellerin recorded over 140 wax cylinders and 78-rpm discs between 1916 and 1928 and recorded several Chistiné songs on the Columbia, Starr, Edison, and His Master’s Voice labels. To hear Pellerin’s recording, visit the Library and Archives Canada Virtual Gramophone site: http://micus.collectionscanada.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=647641.30274&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&rsn=S_WWWjkahnBFrd&all=1&dt=AW+|parfum|+AND+|du|+AND+|soir|&spi=-&rp=1&vo=1
C’est au marché de Bonsecours [first line] (AU1998-1070-015)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-015) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “C’est au marché d’Bonsecours” (“It was at the Bonsecours Market”). This humorous and sentimentalizing courtship song has the hallmarks of an early 20th century popular composition, perhaps composed in Montreal, where the Bonsecours Market was the main farmers’ public market between 1847 and 1963. Montreal in the early 1900s was home to a thriving musical entertainment industry which included composers, singers, and actors specializing in comical and sentimentalizing songs and skits about rural life.
VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1070 interview with Alberta Gagné. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Full Interview: vfc1998-0007_au1998-1070
Je m’en va z-au marché [first line] (AU1998-1070-014)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-014) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Je m’en va z-au marché” (“I Went to the Market) is one of thousands of versions of this ancient and widespread song, which has been widely documented in Europe (Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain) and in French-speaking regions across Canada, Louisiana, and Franco-American New England. Longer versions of the song open with a young woman telling of a heavily laden orange tree (sometimes an apple tree) on her father’s land and asking her parents when the fruit can be picked. In some versions, she is told that the fruit can be picked when her lover comes; in others, the harvest will coincide with the feast day of Saint-Jean. The oranges ripen, but the lover fails to appear, or the feast day arrives and no-one picks the fruit. In either case, the young woman harvests the fruit and off she goes, basket in hand, to sell it. She meets up with a young man, most often the son of a lawyer. Here the story goes one of several ways. Sometimes the song concludes with the young woman being cheated of her sales by the conniving lawyer’s son or his father. In other versions, she is raped as well; in still others, she makes a narrow escape. Alberta Gagné’s version is a short version in which the young man’s exploitation of the young woman is limited to his father cheating her out of her sales money. The young man is not identified as a lawyer’s son; he is however clearly an anglophone who speaks primarily in English. The dialogue in Alberta Gagné’s song is “macaronic” (a term used to designate lyrics sung in two or more languages). Macaronic versions of this song have been documented in both Canada and the United States. In 1976, Quebec’s premier poet-songwriter-composer, Gilles Vigneault, after hearing a francophone airline pilot complain of being obliged to speak English, even with a fellow francophone, above a certain altitude, borrowed a macaronic version of this song as the framework for a new set of seemingly light-hearted, but nonetheless pointed lyrics allegorizing the suppression of French in Canada and the emerging aspirations for self-determination then flourishing in Quebec.
Full Interview: vfc1998-0005_tc1998-1070
J’allais voir les filles, j’avais pas quinze ans [first line] (AU1998-1070-013)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-013) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “J’allais voir les filles, j’avais pas quinze ans” (“I Went to See the Girls, I Wasn’t Yet Fifteen”) is a song with a complex and ancient lineage which includes both mild-mannered nursery rhymes (and defiantly obscene schoolyard parodies) as well as a narrative song about a precocious teenager whose amorous ambitions are quashed by his mother. Alberta Gagné’s song falls into the latter category. Her particular version seems to have been popular in Franco-American Vermont in the mid-to-late 20th century. The Desrosiers Family Collection at the Vermont Folklife Center includes both highly similar hand-written lyrics (VFC2011-0009 Desrosiers Family Collection. MS 2011-3212-002 Pp. 2-4) as well as an equally similar 1983 sound recording of family member Rose Bourgeois (“J'allais Voir les Fille J'avais pas 15 Ans,” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed November 21, 2020, http://explore.vermontfolklifecenter.org/digital-archive/collections/items/show/1709.) All three versions have the same narrative as well as essentially identical refrains. Franco-American Aliette Couturier of Lewiston, Maine sang a slightly different version with a totally different refrain for a 2017 Ethnomusicology class recording project by Colby College students. You can hear this version, sung by Les Troubadours, a Franco-American women’s vocal group on the Franco Memory Through Song website which the students created for this project: http://web.colby.edu/memorythroughsong/quand-jetais-petit/ Versions of Alberta Gagné’s song have also been documented in France, Belgium, Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Louisiana.
Aujourd'hui comme vous savez (AU1998-1070-012)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-012) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Pauvre bonhomme” (‘’Poor Fellow”) began its existence as a 1926 Tin Pan Alley pop hit titled “Poor Papa, He’s Got Nuthin at All,” with lyrics from songwriter and Broadway producer Billy Rose (born William Samuel Rosenberg, 1899-1966) and music by songwriter-composer Henry MacGregor “Harry” Woods (1896-1970). American vaudeville and cabaret singer Dora Kirschenbaum (aka Dolly Kay and Sally Freeman first recorded “Poor Papa” in January 1926 on Columbia Record’s Harmony label (Columbia matrix W141565). You can hear this recording at the University of California at Santa Barbara Library’s Discography of American Historical Recordings website: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000031329/W141565-Poor_papa “Poor Papa,” was an instant success both as a song and an instrumental foxtrot. With its catchy jazz and ragtime-influenced melody and its comic lyrics about a husband who is reduced to penury and servitude while his wife enjoys a life of luxury, Poor Papa” was widely covered by vocal and instrumental ensembles across the United States the year of its publication. In 1926, Montreal songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry (1882-1932) is busily turning out French-language translations and re-workings of popular American hit songs. Beaudry was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, Beaudry’s Montreal-based Starr studio produced 693 francophone records, featuring almost every great name in Quebec lyric, folk and variety song with equal success. Beaudry borrowed Woods’ melody and Rose’s theme of the impoverished father, but in his completely re-imagined and equally comic lyrics, the cause of poverty is his sixteen children, daughters all. Keeping them fashionably dressed and receiving their suitors at home has driven the “pauvre bonhomme” (“poor fellow”) into near destitution and exhaustion. Irving Berlin published Beaudry’s version, titled “Pauvre bonhomme” in 1926 as sheet music, and Arthur LaFleur recorded a 78rpm on Beaudry’s Starr label in December of that year (issue # 15292, matrix # 2544, side A). You can see a copy of Beaudry’s 1926 sheet music setting at the online archives of the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec: https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2067327 “Pauvre bonhomme” clearly was a hit song on both sides of the Canadian border, making its way into the repertories of Franco-American singers in Maine and Vermont as even into French-language communities in Newfoundland. Alberta Gagné’s lyrics are amost identical to the Beaudry setting; the only notable difference is that the long-suffering parent is instead the mother (“pauvre bonne femme”).
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-011) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “La Pitoune” (“The Gal”) is a 1930 original song by Québécois singer-songwriter, fiddler, and harmonica player Madame Édouard Bolduc (1894-1941, née Mary Rose Anne Travers). “La Bolduc,” as she was affectionately known by her audiences, learned to play fiddle, jaw harp, and to sing traditional songs from her family before leaving her small village in the Gaspé region in her teens to work as a domestic in Montreal. She married factory worker Édouard Bolduc when she was barely twenty. By the second half of the 1920s, a poor housewife and mother struggling to help her invalid husband make ends meet, Bolduc joined a Conrad Gauthier’s popular theatrical company, Les veillées du bon vieux temps, which presented “old-fashioned country-style” stage shows in Montreal to the delight of large, working class audiences. Bolduc’s popularity with audiences led to her being signed on as a Compo studio artist in 1929 by songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry (1882-1932). Beaudry was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. Bolduc’s songs, often set to fiddle tunes she had learned back home or on the Montreal stage, humorously related current events and the tribulations of the working poor of French-speaking Montreal. Her recordings sold by the thousands in Quebec and she also had a dedicated following among Franco-Americans in the mill towns of New England, where her records were distributed by Columbia. In addition to her talents as a singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Mme. Bolduc was an excellent “lilter”; songs like “La Pitoune,” with its banjo-imitation chorus, showcase this talent. You can hear Mme. Bolduc’s 1930 recording of this song on the Compo/Starr label (issue # 15730, matrix # 4431) at Library and Archives Canada’s website, The Virtual Gramophone: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/films-videos-sound-recordings/virtual-gramophone/Pages/Item.aspx?idNumber=1007638615 Alberta Gagné’s version presents fewer verses in a somewhat different order with one verse which does not appear in the Bolduc recording, a similar melody and slightly abbreviated chorus.
Bonheur de se revoir [first line] (AU1998-1070-010)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-010) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Le bonheur de se revoir” (“The Happinesss of Meeting Again”) is an early 19th century Parisian pop song, with music by Parisian composer Amédée de Beauplan (1790-1853) and lyrics by Guttinguer. De Beauplan was by turns a playwright, composer, and painter, whose songs, musicales were sung widely in France and in Quebec for more than a century. The earliest known printings of the song are from Paris and Brussels ca. 1825. The lyrics appeared in the Quebec City mid-19th century song collection of popular songs of the day, Lyre Canadienne, Répertoire des meilleurs chanson et romances du jour. (Quebec [City]: Imprimerie Wm. et Fils, 1847): 134. 3 v.). There are no known 20th century recordings of the song from either Canada or Europe. Alberta Gagné’s version generally replicates the original lyrics, although some of the lyrics in the first verse seem to have gotten lost along the way and replaced by borrowing words from the second verse.
Ma femme avait un beau chapeau [first line] (AU1998-1070-009)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-009) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Ma femme avait un beau chapeau’’ (‘’My wife had a beautiful hat’’). This counting song was popularized in the 1950s by Montreal harmonica player and singer Aldor Morin (1921-1998), and again the 1960’s under the title “Tire mon billet” by Montreal actor, folk singer, and songwriter Pierre Daignault (1925-2003). Morin is sometimes credited with its composition, although the song is highly derivative, borrowing both text elements and a melody which has been pressed into service for many different traditional French counting songs such as “Si j’avais des beaux souliers” and “Savez-vous ce qu’il y a.” This particular song appears to have been sung by Laurianne Gagné. Her text and melody closely follow the Morin setting.
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-008) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné.
C’est notre grand-père Noé [first line] (AU1998-1070-007)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-007) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. ‘’C’est notre grand-père Noé” (“Our Grandfather Noah”) is a very ancient French drinking song honoring the biblical Noah for having preserved the grapevine during the Flood and Moses for having the good sense to not mistake the Red Sea for wine. In addition, some French versions include additional verses relating drinking adventures of other figures from Antiquity such as Alexander and Loth. Versions of this song have been widely documented in French, Acadian, Quebecois, and Franco-American communities. There are actually two 17th century songs with similar texts, but different poetic structures: the first type is set out in straight-forward verses; the second type contains wordplay based on deconstructing into syllables words from the last line of each verse. Almost all versions from Canada and Franco-American New England, including Alberta Gagné’s, are the second type. The melody of Aberta Gagné’s song is typical and has a history of being pressed into service for lyrics about drinking dating back to early 17th century Paris. This melody was so catchy that it eventually was used as the music for a wide variety of French songs, including at least three well known carols (“Prenez bergers vos hautbois,” “Allons bergers allons tous,” and “Quand Dieu naquit à Noêl”), political songs from the French Revolution, sea shanties and bawdy ballads. You can hear a second recording of this song from. Alberta Gagné at AU1998-1071-002.
Que de joie et de bonheur [first line] (AU1998-1070-006)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-006) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Ange de mon berceau’’ (“Angel of my cradle”) is a French-language setting of the 1925 American hit song “Pal of my Cradle Days,” with original words by Tin Pan Alley lyricist Marshall Montgomery and music by Albert Joseph “Al” Piantadosi (1882-1955). This “beautiful mother waltz ballad” (to borrow the description on. the front cover description of the 1925 sheet music version) was a runaway success in 1925, resulting in at least a dozen recordings of the song that same year on the Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Brunswick, Edison and Vocalion labels, mostly sung by male vocalists, with the occasional orchestral version. That same year, Montreal songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry (1882-1932 was busily turning out French-language translations and re-workings of popular American hit songs. Beaudry was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, Beaudry’s Montreal-based Starr studio produced 693 francophone records, featuring almost every great name in Quebec lyric, folk and variety song with equal success. Although Beaudry often completely reimagined the narrative in his French-language settings of American pop songs, his setting of “Pal of my Cradle Days” is a fairly faithful translation, particularly in the first verse and chorus; Beaudry’s second verse conveys the sentiments of Marshall’s second verse but is significantly different in its expression. Beaudry lost no time getting “Ange de mon berceau” published on his Compo/Starr label: in November 1925, the studio released a recording by Hercule Lavoie (issue #15232, matrix #1880); two months later, singer-actor-pianist Hector Pellerin (1887-1953) recorded a copy for Victor/His Master’s Voice, (issue #263218, side B). Alberta and Laurianne sing this song as a duo, with Alberta singing the verses, and Laurianne singing harmony on the refrain. Their French-language rendition is virtually identical to the Beaudry setting, and they finish by singing the English-language refrain.
Trois jeunes faucheurs s’en allaient en fauchant (AU1998-1070-005)
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-005) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Trois jeunes faucheurs s'en allait en fauchant’’ (“Three Young Reapers were Going to Reap’’) is a version of an old French song about an unmarried young woman who drowns her newborn child. The theme of infanticide by young unmarried woman has inspired a number of French traditional songs. This particular song has been documented in France, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Franco-American New England. After singing the song, Alberta Gagné related that she first sang this song at the age of five.
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-004) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné.
Viens avec moi pour fêter le printemps [first line] (AU1998-1070-003 )
Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-003) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné. “Viens avec moi pour fêter le printemps” (‘’Come with me to celebrate Springtime’’) is an excerpt from a much longer song, “Les roses!” first published in Paris in 1867, with words by Marc Constantin and music by Olivier Métra. Constantin (1810-1888) was a prolific and celebrated Parisian song lyric writer born in Bordeaux, who provide texts for more than 1500 songs, many of which, like this song, were in a romantic and sentimental vein. He also was a poet, a writer, a composer, a librettist, a journalist, and a playwright. Métra (1830) was a French composer and conductor who became famous in part thanks to waltzes such as the one to which Constantin set the words of this song. “Les Roses!” enjoyed great success: at least fourteen editions (both in vocal and instrumental versions) were published between 1867 and 1902 in five different languages. A shorter version of the song seems to have enjoyed some success in Quebec. Constantin’s song. Two of Constantin’s songs (“Le petit mousse noir’’ and ‘’Attisez le feu’’) were published in the La bonne chansons song book series, which was circulated widely in Quebec Franco-American New England between the late 1930s and the 1960s. Mrs. Gagné commented after singing that Normand Gagné’s mother, Dolores (Betournay) Gagné, also sang this song.