HART ROUGE
Welcome to the Hart Rouge section. You can read the bio provided, or click here to check out lyrics and song clips, including songs from Dodo la planète do albums.
It used to be the town in Saskatchewan near the Montana border now known
as Willow Bunch. It was a type of
tobacco the local native Metis would smoke.
Today, it’s the name of one of the more intriguing bands in Canada…
“Hart-Rouge”
Connie’s husband, Paul, and his six sisters have a rich musical
background themselves. Raised in
the town they would take their namesake from, the Campagnes fine tuned their
distinct harmony-based vocal sound and learned to play a variety of musical
instruments from the mandolin to the accordion.
The family performed mainly folk music in the 70’s as “Folle Avoine”.
As they pressed ahead into the 80’s, their sound diversified.
In fact, in some ways the development of Hart-Rouge mirrored Connie
Kaldor’s, which made a collision course between Paul and Connie almost
inevitable. But having lived in a
French-speaking town in a mainly English speaking province, the Campagne’s
sung as they had spoken growing up, and have become one of Canada’s premiere
bi-lingual groups (though Spanish and Mic Mac, a native Canadian language, have
also found their way into the band’s repertoire.)
Hart Rouge is now a quintet consisting of Paul, Michelle and Suzanne
Campagne along with percussionist Michel Dupire and the multi-talented Davy
Gallant, who all have also provided much of the music on Connie’s recent
albums. They have won numerous
awards, traveled around the world, and yes, even have managed to find an
audience in the U.S. with their 1998 release, Beaupre’s Home.
If it’s hard to peg Connie Kaldor as a “folk singer”, who knows how one could describe Hart Rouge? Well for starters, they're musical accompaniment is minimal -- guitar (Paul on bass and acoustic, Davy as well and a lot more), percussion (Michel drumming on almost anything) and maybe an accordion (courtesy of Michelle). But the brevity in orchestration does not conceal the musical talent when called upon in a song.
I believe the appeal of the group is the harmony vocals, especially from the siblings. I suppose living together for so many years, they've had much practice in not only creating a sound so smooth and on-key, but lyrically timed so perfectly that I get the sense that they can read each other's minds. Again, being family, perhaps to a certain extent that's true. There's no better example of this than Vichten, the Mic Mac song that they power their way through with a tribal force probably not unlike that of the natives who spoke the tongue, and yet keep a harmonic balance reminiscent of a symphony.
And the music has truly been a family affair. Not only has the Campagne's father, Émile, relased an album of traditional French songs, but Paul and Connie's sons, Gabriel and Aleksi recently backed up Hart Rouge on Les amours les travaux from the children's album Un trésor dans mon jardin.
BIRTHDAYS:
Michel Dupire February 26
Suzanne Campagne March 8
Michelle Campagne August 1
Paul Campagne August 6
Davy Gallant October 29
Here are some of Hart Rouge's recent albums; click on an album cover for lyrics and song clips:
Beauprés Home (1997)
Nouvelle-France (1998)
1999: Une histoire de famille - A compilation of tracks from Beaupré's Home and Nouvelle-France with a new track, Ce matin sans hesiter.
2001: J'ai fait un rêve- An album of mostly songs in French; GalaADisq nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album 2002.
Dodo la planète do (2002) - Juno nomination for Best Children's Album, 2003
Though the album is presented as a "various artist" project,
essentially this a Hart Rouge production with guest artists. The album is
produced by Paul and Folle Avoine Productions, most of the traditional songs are
arranged by Paul, Michelle and Suzanne, and there are two new songs written by
the Campagnes. Davy and Michel's musical influences can be heard
throughout the album as well (Davy on guitar, flutes and mandolin, Michel on
almost every percussion instrument imaginable).
Dodo is a collection of lullabies from or influenced by countries around the world. It combines the quality of Hart Rouge's experimentation of different sounds and languages with the warmth and serenity of Lullaby Berceuse, which the siblings were also involved in.
Guest singers on the album include Carlos Placeres, Sylvia Balassanian, Idrissa Sissokho and Connie Kaldor.
Guest musicians include Bob Cohen, Calvin Cairns, Denis Fréchette, Guy Ross, Jean-Pierre Carpentier, Liu Fang and Michel Dubeau.
In what is also a first for the group, the album is actually a CD-ROM that contains lyrics and poster size images of the charming illustrations for each song provided by Sylvie Bourbonnière.
Click here to read an interview with Paul Campagne on "Dodo" from the Montreal Gazette.
Click here for lyrics and song clips.
Dodo la planète do 2 (2003) Juno nomination for Best Children's Album, 2004
Another fantastic creation from the
mind and effort of Paul Campagne and Hart Rouge. This album and CD-ROM,
hopefully the second of a series of more "Dodo" projects to come,
provides more of the same charm and talent that made the first album a gem.
Paul is not as present vocally this time around, but that's only because of the time he put in assembling the multi-cultural artists, creating the arrangements of many of the songs, and producing it all. As with the first album of international lullabies, he and everybody involved manage to create pleasing and sometimes catchy melodies for all ages -- yet still keep true to the original cultural spirit and sound of the songs.
After listening to both albums, one starts to become amazed at how adept the siblings are at speaking all these languages -- or even more impressive, singing them. Suzanne seems to have a love of Italian, as evident from Sogni d'oro from the first "Dodo", and her rendition of La ninna nanna from this project, though she also gracefully sings her way through Makun, a song native to Chad, with the African band H'Sao. As for Michelle, she goes from singing Polish on one track to Afrikaans on the next! Of course, nothing comes easy; everybody needed some linguistic coaching, but the results are truly impressive.
The songs are mostly traditional children's songs from across the globe: Armenia, Costa Rica, Australia, Japan, and even one adopted from the Hurons -- a tribe of native North Americans that made up the community of Wendake (which included parts of present day Ontario and Quebec.) There is a new song, however, from Suzanne and Michelle: Je te dis merci.
Guest singers on Dodo 2 include the group H'Sao (Caleb Rimtobaye, Israël Rimtobaye, Amos Rimtobaye, Service Ledjebgue, Dono Bei Ledjebgue and Taroum Rimtobaye), Sylva Balassanian, Mary Fujiwara Burke, Paul Kunigis, Juan Jose Carranza and Nathalie Picard.
Present as always are Davy and Michel, along with guest musicians Bob Cohen, Jonathan Moorman, Luc Lopez, Michel Dubeau and Guy Bell.
And this time there are more ways to enhance the listening experience. The CD comes with a picture book full of more imaginative illustrations from Sylvie Bourbonnière, and on the disc itself you'll find poster-sized versions of the pictures to print, song lyrics and translations in English and French.
Click here for lyrics and song clips.
Stay tuned to CKUSA, as Paul has managed to gather another tremendous group of artists for a THIRD Dodo album to be released very soon, perhaps early 2008. We'll let you know when it's released, and give you the rundown on the record right here in this section.
