One year ago, on December 18, Renée Martel left us. As a tribute to the work and legacy of the great lady of the country, her daughter Laurence and her producer and agent Martin Leclerc had the idea of bringing together young artists from here to cover, each in her own way, top pieces of gold cowgirls discography. this album, It’s our storywill be released on March 24, 2023.
Renée Martel and her daughter Laurence, who have been in the music industry for more than 15 years, shared an all-consuming passion for music. The idea of an album of covers of the mother’s songs of young Quebec artists to whom her daughter often introduced them had been in her mind for many years.
However, time will have run out for the singer to complete this project that has enchanted her, she who has always been happy to pass on her knowledge and share her love for music with the artists of the new generation.
Rebuild with music
“I had long discussions with my mother about music, explains Laurence Lebel, 34, for whom this album is part of her mourning process. Music has always been our strongest bond. I always tried to make him listen to new things to show him that everything was a continuity. I told her that his most famous songs should be covered by artists who would have nothing to do with country, who would be his opposite of him, but for whom it would certainly mark his memories.
This is exactly what director Pilou and Laurence (as art director) did. It’s our story. The album – recorded in Pilou’s studio in the Saint-Adrien countryside last October, November and December – is made up of 12 tracks bringing together 12 young artists. Each offers their own version and interpretation of a piece chosen from Renée Martel’s rich repertoire.
The Boulay sisters, Ingrid St-Pierre, Tire the coyotes and the others
The choice of artists was made organically: most of them were friends of the singer’s daughter, people she had known for a long time in her career, whom she saw at the beginning, with whom Renée Martel collaborated and some who she also presented to his mother.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Mercier
The Boulay sisters in the studio for the tribute album to Renée Martel
This is the case of Elliot Maginot, who became Renée Martel’s favorite in her later years, and of Étienne Coppée, the last artist her daughter introduced to her mother. She the latter had moved Renée Martel with all her emotion conveyed in her music despite her young age.
“It is extremely flattering to hear all these beautiful things and to be a part of this album, explains Elliot Maginot, recalling his first beautiful meeting with Renée Martel. She told me I made her blush, it was a beautiful moment.
The 34-year-old singer offers an acoustic version, stripped of the original and melancholic yé-yé accents of my romance novel. It is also her video of this healing – shared a few hours after the singer’s death – that ignited the spark of this long-maturing project in the artist’s daughter.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Mercier
Ingrid St-Pierre in the studio for the Renee Martel tribute album
“This album honors the fact that Renée Martel was hyper-curious, a music lover and kept up to date with what was happening in music today,” continues the singer who finds herself here among artists such as the Boulay sisters, Ingrid St. – Pierre, Tire le coyote, Fanny Bloom, Ariane Roy and Gab Bouchard.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Mercier
Bring the coyote to the studio for Renee Martel tribute album
To perpetuate his work
For the producer and agent of Renée Martel for more than 15 years, Martin Leclerc, it is important to provoke events so that the singer’s work continues.
“His departure is a creative loss, he says, because every year he came with his own project. Same thing with Michel Louvain. These are great pieces that have left us, great heritage pieces, important pillars and great deficiencies even today. You have to create projects like this to keep their memory. We need to make sure that a new generation knows that.”
“It remains engraved in people’s memories, it’s up to us to perpetuate his work with these artists, this album, the tour of the show that will follow from the summer of 2023 and the people who will receive this record,” adds the producer, who says he feels a great void a year after the disappearance of the one who affectionately nicknamed his great-aunt Renee”.
Some songs and artists featured on the album It’s our story:
- golden cowgirl of the Boulay sisters
- I go to London by Ingrid St Pierre
- Our games for children by Etienne Coppée
- I have a love that doesn’t want to die by Gab Bouchard
- Liverpool by Alexe Gaudreault
- my romance novel by Elliott Maginot
- A grunge version of the piece The ship of happiness by Ariane Roy
