Ibumped into singer-songwriter and radio host Jim Corcoran at the launch party for Zachary Richard's Last Kiss Thursday evening at the Savoy club and we were talking about how we both did a bit of a double-take when we saw Céline Dion's name on the album credits. Let's just be polite and say it's not the most obvious concept to think of notre Céline nationale in a duet with rootsy Cajun auteur-compositeur Richard.
But you know what? Their version of Acadian Driftwood, the classic Robbie Robertson song about the Acadian people's forced exile down south to Richard's neck of the woods in Louisiana, is brilliant and deeply moving. By the time it climaxes with the two oh-so-different singers belting out the couplet "J'arrive, Acadie/J'ai le mal du pays," it's impossible not to be touched by the performance.
In a chat in his absurdly cramped dressing room Thursday - just before he took the stage for a passionate, but short unplugged set - Richard talked of how he hooked up with the superstar Québécoise songbird. Late last summer, Richard - who splits his time between his homes in Montreal and Louisiana - thought he had wrapped the album, his first English CD in 17 years, but then Dion changed his plans.
"I thought (the album) was over until August of last year when I sang with Céline on the Plaines d'Abraham, and inspired by the passion of the moment, I asked her if she wanted to do something and she said, 'yeah,' and that turned into another three months of work. I knew the girl had great pipes and she had a lot of soul, but I didn't know how she would do in my world, a more roots (world). We did this tune (at Dion's show on the Plains of Abraham) called La promesse cassée, which is something I wrote about Katrina, and then I understood that not only could she come in my world and be comfortable, but she could also rock in that style.
"Then I was knocking around, (wondering) what we could do. I mean my record was finished. And I've been playing Acadian Driftwood for at least 20 years, at the house, on the piano. I'm the biggest Robbie Robertson fan of all time. That song, which means a lot to me, being of Acadian heritage, is also about the possibility of creating a message of compassion and courage and forgiveness, which is, I think, at the heart of the Acadian story."
Last Kiss is Richard's first album in the language of Dylan since Snake Bite Love in 1992. In the years since then, Richard re-introduced himself to francophone fans on both sides of the Atlantic with a series of popular, critically acclaimed albums en français.
But as Richard was quick to point out during our conversation, he has always moved between the two languages in his oeuvre. His first album, High Time, was recorded for Electra Records in the early '70s, though it was a victim of record-company politics and only saw the light of day in 2000. That setback was part of the reason Richard segued into the franco world, recording seven albums in French in the late 1970s and '80s, a run that turned him into a well-known figure in both Quebec and France.
During his set at the Savoy Thursday, Richard showcased that bilingual/bicultural heritage by talking on stage mostly en français, singing the English songs from Last Kiss, and trying to explain his mixed roots to this mostly franco crowd.
"For the language-challenged, now I'm going to talk in that other language," he said, in English, adding: "I know it's sensitive, but part of me is proud to be American, particularly since November," a reference to the election of Barack Obama.
"There are kids in Manitoba who call themselves bilinguals," said Richard, in our chat before the show. "Not bilingual as an adjective, but bilingual as a noun. It's a mark of identity I understand really well coming from Louisiana and being able to navigate with a great deal of ease between the two languages.
"Here in Quebec, the first question I get is: 'Why an English record?' And I'm going - 'It's more surprising that I sing in French.' After all, I am an American and I come from Louisiana.
"It's never been a conscious decision. Through this fog will come a sound and I'll jump on that sound like a falcon on a pigeon - I'm going to get that thing. But that sound is
already in a language. It already sounds like a word in one of the two languages I speak. So I don't choose. There's no volition on my part."
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