Quebec star shares soul
Francophone artist’s first Western tour already boasts two sellouts
Despite all of the work, all of the reaching out to one another, there remain Two Solitudes in this country. Especially when it comes to the music industry.
A francophone artist in Quebec can literally sell a million records and be unheard of past those provincial borders. Rare is the exception.
But young Bobby Bazini wants to be one.
“I wanted to come here and play. I want to play everywhere. I want to bring my music as far as I can,” says the 25- year- old souldrenched, retro roots singer on the other line from Vancouver.
“I’m using the success that I’ve have in Quebec and the money that I’m making to put on a tour outside of Quebec. It’s really important to me.”
He’s off to a pretty amazing start. His first tour in Western Canada has already given him a couple of sold- out shows — a number he hopes to add to when he hits Calgary for a Festival Hall date Wednesday.
Bazini registers genuine surprise to the warm welcome he’s received in these parts, but it’s hard to imagine anything but when you take into account his talent and the timing.
The talent, well, that’s self- evident to anyone who’s heard the Montreal- based performer sing — a folkier Motown vox wrapped in a Stax sound. It’s part of the reason his debut album, 2010’ s Better In Time, went platinum and earned him a pair of Juno nominations for Pop Album of the Year and Best New Artist. The song I Wonder from that release topped the charts in Quebec for nine weeks and made him a superstar in his home province.
As for the timing, the tour just happens to follow what was his coming out to the rest of the country, a show- stopping performance at the Junos of his song Bubblegum ( I Can’t Stop This Feeling) from his 2014 sophomore release Where I Belong — another two- time Juno nominee for Album of the Year and Fan Choice.
Bazini notes that it was “perfect timing,” and the reaction on social media was instantaneous, tickets sales out West immediately becoming in- demand items.
“It was crazy,” he says. “Right after that performance at the Junos Vancouver sold out in a couple of hours.”
Bazini also says from that appearance there was an avalanche of requests for more shows, which should take him to the end of the year.
The fact that this is all coming now, almost a full year after the release of Where I Belong and almost two years since it was recorded, is something that the artist is actually comfortable with, welcoming the opportunity to perform the material as if it was still fresh.
Because to him it is. It remains a special album, a special experience.
“It’s something that I’ve been dreaming about doing for so long,” he says. “The record sounds like those records that I love, that I grew up listening to.”
There’s a good reason for that, considering it was produced by industry giant and former Joni Mitchell partner Larry Klein at L. A.’ s famed The Village studios, where works by such iconic acts as Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Eric Clapton have been recorded.
But that was in September of 2013 and so much more has happened to Bazini since then that he’s still taking stock of it, trying to get a handle on it, while forging ahead.
He reveals that, even as he’s introducing himself and his past to new audiences, he’s also been working on new material.
His label and management — including a manager in the U. S. — have been setting up co- writing sessions for him, with him already doing some in Nashville and L. A. that have proven fruitful.
And who knows, maybe when it’s finally released he’ll bridge those other Two Solitudes in the music industry that everyone in this country, be they Franco or Anglo, hope to cross into — Canada and the larger, more lucrative region to the south.
You get the sense with Bobby Bazini he’s just staking claim to everywhere he truly belongs.