Daniel Lavoie: the official website

Daniel Lavoie has come to terms with his problem years

Ēchos vedettes, March 1997 by Normand Cusson

Is he shy? "At the beginning, like Kevin Parent today, but when people develop an idea, they don't budge from it ever. Basically, I've gained a bit by being misunderstood…"

On his new album Live au Divan vert, Daniel Lavoie gives a surprising interpretation of the Blues du Businessman. Spoken rather than sung, dark, heavy, sarcastic, the glorious hymn dreamt up by Luc Plamondon, seems like a funeral march. The singer says "For me this businessman is quite unpleasant. I don't believe him for one second when he says "I would have liked to become an artist". He's a pitiful cynic…" Here Daniel Lavoie stops suddenly and bursts out laughing, "Of course, it's perhaps my own hang-up, an obsession of mine for a very long time."

We can't escape from the business problems that Lavoie has had these last years. At first betrayed by his manager and friend of 20 years, then forced into personal bankruptcy. Then he was stripped of the master tapes of his songs which, from now on, lie idle with EMI in France. The singer explains "They don't have the right to release the songs without my authorisation and I'm not going for the conditions they are offering me." As he's not able to obtain them anywhere, Live au Divan vert contains some classics like Je voudrais voir New York, Jours de Plaine, Long Courrier and Tension Attention etc… 16 songs in all, presented just like their writer and his quartet interpreted them over two years on tour. This unadvertised show has won them great critical acclaim and good theatres but, in the fiasco which is showbusiness, the financial rewards remained modest.

He's not leading the life of a faded pop star, the writer of the Temps des animaux is not without work. He's about to direct Louise Forestier's album, he's made an English version of his album for children, Le Bébe Dragon, and he's preparing a second one in French, and that's not counting music for two films and some plans for the near future. Lavoie reckons that "work goes better when there is no need to be successful. When that happens you do lots of things which you hadn't thought about before. I did more things then that I had done 10 years ago". 15 years ago, his Tension Attention attracted all the disco generation to French chanson. A bit afterwards, his Ils s'aiment almost broke into the French market. At the time of Here in the Heart he was under contract in the USA. However, he had to struggle alone without René Angeli behind him and he found that irritating.

"I took fright. I saw myself controlled by a big machine. I'd already had problems with Los Angeles. Here I have a fantastic family and I know I must hold on tight to that. Finally, on the day I decided to stop driving myself, I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders." Today, Daniel Lavoie plays the "nice Daddy", especially with his younger child, age seven. For a long time that was difficult. "I was torn apart when I was never at home and my son said "When are you coming back Daddy?" I knew that I was sacrificing something…" (His elder son is now 22 and is studying electrical engineering at the Polytechnic. He is mad about the flamenco guitar "he's a very good musician" his father says but, all the same, he advised him to get a profession besides his interest in the Spanish guitar.)

So finally not so bitter then, Daniel Lavoie? "Bitter about one thing. The Québec government stood aside when my songs were sold abroad in a garage sale. The Cultural Bank of Québec (SOGIQ) didn't lift a finger. A bloke from Manitoba didn't count. Had it been Vigneault for example …" Apart from these bureaucrats "who were not even aware of the dirty trick they were playing", Daniel Lavoie has come to terms with the problem years. He even found some businessmen, like the producer André Di Cesare and his present manager, Robert Vinet, who "respected their artistes and who knew to listen to them. That's most unusual, but it does happen."