Kelly: Revered Quebec singer Serge Fiori was loved by both solitudes

Ottawa Citizen

4 days ago

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He didn't write all that much music in the 40-plus years since L'Heptade, but when he did, like for his very good solo album from 2014, it was as great as ever and became a huge hit.
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After he died on June 24, the day of La Fête de la Saint-Jean, so many online were talking about the heavy symbolism of him leaving us on Quebec's national holiday. He was as loved as any contemporary Québécois artist and was a tireless defender of the French language and culture here right up to the end of his life.
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Given all that, it's quite the rich irony that the local French-language music biz here was initially cool to Harmonium. I've met and interviewed Fiori many times over the years and he often told the story of how French radio in Montreal wasn't into the band in the early days. The first station to play Pour un instant was CHOM, and because of that Fiori always had a soft spot for the anglo classic-rock station.
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The band also signed with a Toronto-based disco label, rather than with any of the Montreal record companies. They often toured Canada to packed venues and even played throughout California, opening for Supertramp.
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I asked him how it was that English-Canadians were so into Harmonium.
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'I don't know, but it was the first time a (Quebec) band was going there, all through Canada, with nights and nights booked in every city,' Fiori said. 'You'd go on stage and there's like 3,000 people at the Orpheum in Vancouver. And they sing the words in French, and that's very rare.'
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The record company CBS offered to pay him to re-record the Harmonium songs in the language of Lennon and he turned them down. That day in the fall of 2022, I asked him why he said 'no'.
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'Cause I'm nuts,' he said with a laugh. 'First of all, there's something about writing rock 'n' roll in French that is extremely hard. It's pretty easy in English. It sounds good with nothing. Once you get it (in French), it's so profound. The song is so amazing, so even translating that in English, for me it wouldn't work… and I think if I would have done that, Quebec would have turned against me.'
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He said the reaction in Western Canada was exactly the same as it was here in Quebec — people just adored Harmonium. They told him they didn't care what language the songs were in, 'It was just the music.'
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He recalled travelling to Toronto with the band to meet with the executives at Quality Records and on the spot the label gave them five grand to make an album in Montreal, something no local label was willing to do.
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'We were too weird (for the Montreal record companies),' Fiori said.
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But so accessible as well, you touched the heart of everyone, said Borne.
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'Yeah, but they didn't believe that,' Fiori said.
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To which I chimed in, 'proving my theory that the vast majority of these record-company people know nothing.'
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'Thank you very much,' Fiori said quietly.
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Then he started laughing.
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