A francophone crooner’s Juno battle with Justin Bieber
Canada’s music biz found an odd way to honour Quebec legend Ginette Reno
MONTREAL— In April, Ginette Reno will turn 66, with more than 50 years in the music business, dozens of major awards to her name and status as one of Quebec’s superstars.
Last October, at Quebec’s ADISQ awards, she hauled in trophies for Album of the Year and Bestselling Album of the Year.
Yet at the Junos, whose nominations were announced on Tuesday, she isn’t even in the running for Francophone Album of the Year.
Instead, she’s named in the “fan choice” category, alongside the likes of Justin Bieber, Drake and Avril Lavigne.
Some critics, professional and ama- teur, say it’s a bit unseemly. Through her spokesperson, the frank-talking crooner herself is calling it “unfortunate” and even unfair.
“From a francophone point of view, we sold the most and the best album (in Quebec) and (she is) not even nominated for Best Francophone Album,” said spokesperson Pierre Raiche in an interview.
Reno declined to be interviewed on the subject.
Her nomination in the category nevertheless highlights the incredible, even mysterious, staying power she has after so long in the business, a rare quality her young competitors might only hope to emulate.
“It’s pretty rare anywhere that an artist can be supported for 50 years by a very loyal public. It’s a bit of a mystery.” ROBERT THÉRIEN, MUSICAL HISTORIAN, ON GINETTE RENO’S POPULARITY IN QUEBEC
It’s not the first time for a Juno snub. The same thing happened at the 2010 Junos — once again after she had hauled in the ADISQ honours for Best Album and Bestselling Album.
The topic is being debated on Twitter, with most, like @SusanLeger, wondering why the Junos would place her in a category alongside “Drake, Justin and company . . .? #junobizzzarrre.”
Raiche admitted it’s “a bit strange” for this to happen twice, and that Reno concedes she has “no chance” to win against such young celebrities with crazed fans around the globe.”
“She’s in the wrong category,” he added.
The Francophone Album of the Year is nominated by a panel of judges, explained Brenna Knought, manager of awards and events for the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which administers the Junos.
The panel is made up of francophones, the majority of whom are from Quebec. They will also decide the winner.
As for Reno’s criticism, Knought said the nominating process is legitimate, “and there are disappointments and surprises every year.”
Along with many other awards, including Officer of the Order of Canada, Reno already has three Junos she won in the1970s. Musical historian Robert Thérien said there is a “ridiculous” side to having Reno, at the tail end of her career, competing with “very hot young stars”: nine anglophone acts in their prime.
Thérien said the fan choice category needs “fine-tuning.”
On the other hand, the way in which its nominees are chosen is half based on album sales and half on an artist’s buzz, as measured online.
This speaks directly to Reno’s enduring popularity, which cannot be denied.
Born into a family of modest income, the third of five children, her father was a butcher, her mother a seamstress. Reno began singing early in life, as young as 5, earning spending money singing in stores and restaurants around the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal.
She won several talent competitions and was soon well on her way to record deals and huge success in Quebec. Her success in English Canada came in 1970 with her “Beautiful Second Hand Man,” which climbed the national charts.
Improbably, her shine in Quebecers’ eyes has not diminished even slightly.
Apart from the continued top awards, she has a new show starting in April in Montreal and she’s going to act in the sequel to Mambo Italiano. And she’s teaching a “master class” to contestants on Quebec’s incredibly popular Star Académie, an American Idol- like reality TV show.
“It’s pretty rare anywhere that an artist can be supported for 50 years by a very loyal public,” Thérien said. “It’s a bit of a mystery.”
In part, it might be due to the fact that unlike international celebrity superstars — such as Céline Dion, who counts Reno as one of her idols — Reno is considered just like everyone else, like one of the family.
She’s folksy and has never been afraid to speak her mind. In 1991, she personally held a massive garage sale at her home in Boucherville. People came from all over to buy an object from the life of their favourite singer.
She toured in Canada and had success in France and Belgium. But, recalled Thérien, she always chose her personal life — famously scrutinized — over international stardom.
Her love life was difficult. She was married once and took more than one of her managers as lovers. She had three children, one of whom is now her musical director.
She also gives every performance her all, Raiche said, and for different reasons now than when she was young.
Then, she used to say that every performance felt like her first. “Now, as she’s getting older,” Raiche said, “she’s saying it feels like it’s the last. The feeling is the same: she’s very nervous, very anxious before going onstage.”
On Star Académie, she’s imparting her decades-long wisdom. “It takes a whole life to know who we are,” she told the contestants on a recent episode.
“Only at the end of one’s life are we going to discover what we lived.”
A public favourite, she is already. In that respect, perhaps the Junos were right all along.