Jean-Pierre Ferland (1934-2024) | Gumdrop became a man

A look back at the life and career of a key figure in local music

1934

Birth, June 24, of Jean-Pierre Ferland, rue Chambord, in Montreal. He is the second child in a family of seven.

1958

After briefly working at the Société Radio-Canada, he became known with Les Bozos, a group of songwriters in which we also found Clémence DesRochers, Jacques Blanchet, Raymond Lévesque and Hervé Brousseau. The adventure was short, but he returned the following year in a show with Clémence DesRochers.

1962

His song Mistletoe leaf won the Radio-Canada Custom Song competition and the grand prize at the International Song Gala in Brussels. He beats Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré to the finish line…

1968

His career is off to a good start, here and in Europe, where he signed a contract with Barclay. He nevertheless returned to Quebec, a return marked by his song I’m coming back home, which achieved great success in France. That year he launched a homonymous album on which we also find Marie Claire, If I knew how to talk to women And The worldly assassin.

1970

Sounded by The OsstidchoFerland rolls up his sleeves and launches one of his greatest records: YELLOW. He wrote the songs with Michel Robidoux and the album was produced by André Perry, who had recorded Give Peace a Chance of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their bed-in to Montreal.

1975

He sings on Mount Royal for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day with, among others, Renée Claude and Ginette Reno. The latter captivates the audience by interpreting A little further, which will become one of the emblematic songs of Ferland… and of Reno. The two friends will take it again years later for the 400^e anniversary of Quebec City during the Celine Dion concert.

1976

Jean-Pierre Ferland is part of the National Day show presented in Quebec and Montreal, alongside Yvon Deschamps, Robert Charlebois, Gilles Vigneault and Claude Léveillée. The album taken from the show, 1 time 5launched the following year, won a prize from the Académie Charles-Cros.

nineteen eighty one

He moved away from singing and hosted, from 1981 to 1987, the show Sun StationThen The showbusiness bus. We retain few immortal songs among his albums from that decade, except No two songs are the same. In 1989 he presented a show inspired by Galathe muse of Dalí and Paul Éluard, but it is a failure.

1995

Returned to the song with Blue, white, blues in 1992, he struck a blow to the heart with don’t listen to that. Late in his life, this record remained the one he felt closest to. Ferland, both epic and fragile, releases some of his greatest songs on this album: don’t listen to that, The music, A chance we have and the lightest but also striking Don’t love too quickly, don’t love too hard And Send to home.

2007

Jean-Pierre Ferland bids farewell to the stage on January 13, during a show at the Bell Center. He is retiring, he says. However, the singer will often come out afterwards. We found him regularly on stage during the following decade and even on television (he is coach has The voice in 2013). In 2011, he will play the entire YELLOWfor the 40th anniversary of the record, at the Francos.

2020

Ferland releases a studio album titled Going into the wind.