Jean-Pierre Ferland (1934-2024) | The Yellow Icon

The Osstidcho shook Quebec and… destroyed Jean-Pierre Ferland.

The anecdote has been told several times, by him and by others, and it always ends the same way: seeing Charlebois and the others at Place des Arts, the singer, then anchored in the French song tradition, feels “stabbed to death”. He felt an “ostidshock”, as his biographer writes.

Except that Ferland has rebound.

Less than two years later, he released an album which, more than half a century after its release, remains a milestone in the musical history of Quebec.

We are talking about YELLOW and we immediately think of the great songs it contains: The little king, Sing Sing, When we love we are always 20 years old, God is an American and the extraordinary The cat from the artists’ café. Tunes that Ferland carried on stage throughout his later life. Because there was a before and an after YELLOW.

“Quite a trip”

Jean-Pierre Ferland shined at the end of the 1960s. He had a contract with a major French record company (Barclay) and his first major popular success in France (I’m coming back home). His style, both inspired by French song and local singers, nevertheless remains quite classic. He takes the full measure of it when he sees The Osstidcho.

“My last song recorded in Paris was A little higher, a little further. When I heard the final result, I bawled in dismay! I had to leave this French style, he tells the journalist Alain Brunet in an interview at The Press in 2008. I then started writing before returning to Quebec, I began composing some music with Michel Robidoux. In fact, I was creating out of desperation. »

From Paris, Ferland called André Perry, who had recorded Give Peace a Chance with John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their bed-in to Montreal. He needed someone who would be able to take him somewhere else. He recruited American musicians: he brought in guitarist David Spinozza, drummer Jim Young and bassist Tony Levin (later seen in King Crimson).

“I sang to them what I had written, they really liked it,” the singer said in 2008. “It was extraordinary to work with these American musicians who loved my Quebec songs, who loved my spirit. »

This trip was not without pain. Among other things, because this transformation required Ferland to distance himself from certain collaborators: his accomplice and conductor Franck Dervieux, first, and even Michel Robidoux, who had nevertheless contributed to giving birth to the spark of the monumental album at to be born.

YELLOW finds its singularity and draws its strength from this unique blend of French song and almost theatrical rock, in phase with the shattered rock culture of the turn of the 1970s. Its director, André Perry, has already stated to The Press that this album was one of the great American and international records of the time. Nothing less.

Here was a turning point. YELLOW was the first Quebec concept album. We had never heard, moreover, such a refined rock song record. We took stock of this again in 2005, when the album benefited from a special remastered edition (remasteredas the Americans say) which gave the full measure of the arrangements signed Art Philips and Buddy Fasano.

In 2011, when celebrating the 40th anniversary of his legendary album on stage, Jean-Pierre Ferland entrusted Alain de Repentigny with The Press having doubted a lot – wondering if he had not sold his soul to pop music, as a group of students notably accused him of. “It took me a long time to love YELLOW, he said. Basically, I think I agreed with the students. »

Read our 2011 album interview YELLOW

YELLOW did not experience a stage life worthy of the name. The show put on in November 1970 at Place des Arts did not attract crowds. It was crazy: there were four bulldozers on the stage – the structure of the stage had even been reinforced on purpose. Guy Latraverse, producer and friend of Ferland, left his shirt there, as they say.

In 2011, the singer was able to recover. And even singing in public for the first time some of the songs of YELLOW that he had never done on stage, like What you say when you hold a woman in your arms And There are days. “I never thought I would one day be able to do YELLOW entirely with the Prologue and theEpiloguesaid Ferland again in 2011. And I think that I sing better than at the time of YELLOW. As my conductor tells me: “You’ve been rehearsing for 40 years…”