QUEBEC ICON LIVES UP TO THE LEGEND
I was a big fan of the music of Robert Charlebois long before I met him.
He has, after all, been a musical force in the francophone world for more than 50 years. You can’t spend any time with Charlebois anywhere in France without people recognizing him, just the way they do in Montreal.
There is an inherent danger in meeting people you admire. What if they turn out to be jerks?
I liked Charlebois the moment I met him, and as I got to know him better, I liked and respected him even more.
He is not completely the character Kris Kristofferson writes about in his beautiful lament The Pilgrim:
“He’s a poet, oh, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher
He’s a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he’s stoned
He’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.” But he is close. The main difference is in the last line. In Charlebois’ case, on his lonely way back home, he stopped in France and not only found love in his wife, Laurence, but strength and discipline, the stuff that allows him to keep doing what he has done so well — make and perform wonderful music.
I met Charlebois in 2010. I was about to direct my first film, French Immersion, and there
was a character in it my co-writer Jefferson Lewis and I referred to as Réal Caouette, the long-serving real-life Créditiste member of Parliament.
I always thought of Caouette as the perfect Quebec politician, a man who lived and breathed Yvon Deschamps’ brilliant analysis: “Le vrai Québécois sait qu’est-ce qu’y veut … c’t’un Québec indépendant dans un Canada fort.” (“A true Quebecer knows what he wants … an independent Quebec in a strong Canada.”)
We called our character Onésime, a name I have loved since The Plouffe Family, and we made him a Senator.
We needed an icon to play the part because we were already treading on dangerous parody territory. Charlebois was my first choice.
Rosina Bucci, our casting agent, was dubious, but always up for an adventure.
Charlebois hadn’t acted in a long time, but we decided to float a trial balloon. Much to my delight the answer came back: he’s interested.
Going to meet Charlebois is a big deal. The one thing you do not have to worry about is whether you will recognize him. That haircut is so unique, at times he seems to talk about it as Charlebois in the third person.
“Why me?” he asked over coffee in the garden of a café on Laurier, where not a single person did not recognize him and whisper to a seatmate. I explained we wanted an icon. “What did you say?” He appeared miffed. The pronunciation in French of “icon” is fairly close to a speededup version of “Il est con,” or “He is an idiot.”
He smiled, seemed pleased at my embarrassment. Maybe we even bonded over it.
Charlebois, as anyone who has listened to his lyrics will know, loves to play with language, rhymes and invention. He is also very good at it in English, too. The price you pay for that talent is endless puns. No one is perfect.
He was a wonderful Senator Onésime Tremblay, loved and admired by one and all on set, humble, charming, prepared, a total pro. The best moment came while we were waiting to light an exterior scene, and there was a lovely piano in the house where we were shooting. We had an enjoyable few minutes of a different Charlebois, the lounge crooner.
His current mini-tour, which brings him to the Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts March 30, 31 and April 1, is called Rock’oustic, an absolutely Charlebois title.
He will be performing with five musicians in that intimate space and the set list is “an audacious re-reading of his repertoire, quasi-acoustic but always rock,” according to the Place des Arts website.
One of his best known songs is called Ordinaire. That is not a word I would use to describe Robert Charlebois.