Born in the Francophone community of Dunrea, Manitoba, in 1949, Gérald “Daniel” Lavoie is a singer-songwriter, but also an actor, a radio host and a poet who gave us countless unforgettable songs, including the eternal Ils s’aiment, an ode to the power of love against the worst atrocities of our world. . . Young Gérald was raised by his music-loving mother and his father, a general store owner. At 14, Daniel Lavoie continued his education à Collège de Saint-Boniface where he understood carrying on speaking French would be a struggle. His uncle being a doctor, Daniel aspired to become one as well, but the attraction of music proved to be stronger. Later, he consoled himself by saying that his songs do good, they calm and heal, making him a kind of doctor or shaman...
Gifted for music, he played saxophone, trumpet, guitar and various percussions as well a sang. In 1967, Lavoie was a contestant on the French CBC’s contest Jeunesse oblige and won first place in his province; at the national semifinals in Ottawa, he met Franck Dervieux, Jean-Pierre Ferland’s pianist, who persuaded him to continue in this direction because he was too talented to abandon music. Lavoie heeded the message and the day after graduating, he left for Québec, joined a band and, for the next 18 months, he played in all of Québec’s clubs and cafés, seven days a week, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.
After that tour, he decided to stay in Québec and he earned a living playing in piano bars. That’s when he decided to change his name, feeling that a musical career as Gérald was not destined to reach its full potential. He flipped through a phone book and settled on Daniel.
His first album, À court terme, was produced in 1975 by Gilles Valiquette and includes J’ai quitté mon île, a song that is now part of our collective imagination and that has had some success in Brazil and Portugal. In 1979, the album Nirvana bleu and the hit song La danse du smatte were released, which Lavoie wrote in Montréal’s Lafontaine Park on a day of deep existential crisis, leaning against a tree.
In the early 1980s, Lavoie had been in the industry for over a and still lived living below the poverty line. He decided that if his next album wasn’t successful, he would forsake his musical career. In 1983, with the help of Daniel Deshaime, he put the final touches to Tension Attention, an album that marked a turning point in his career and won three Felix awards the following year. The crown jewel of this album was to become his most emblematic hit, Ils s’aiment: “I was writing, one day, and I stopped for a lunch break around noon. I turned the TV on and there was this report of the war in Beyrouth. I saw two teenagers standing hand in hand on some ruins and it struck me. Fifteen minutes later I was done writing Ils s’aiment.” The song proved to be the key to the doors of France: following a TV appearance, he sold 27,000 records in a single day, more than in his whole life so far! The French people consecrated it “Song of the Century” in 1999.
This newfound fame, however, did not suit him so well. Explaining that it is very difficult not to let success change us, he decided to take a break after realizing that he no longer found any joy in his trade. He then joined forces with his manager and friend Réjean Rancourt and founded the music publishing company Trafic, reinvesting its profits to launch the careers of new original authors and composers such as Luc De Larochellière and Marie-Philippe, who rubbed shoulders with better-known artists such as Belgazou and Gaston Mandeville.
In 1986, Lavoie released Vue sur la mer, which included the hit Je voudrais voir New York, inspired by an interview given by Lech Walesa, the leader of Polish trade union Solidarity. In September 1988, along with Michel Rivard, Sting, Peter Gabriel and Bruce Springsteen, he was part of the line-up of Human Rights Now, a benefit show for Amnesty International presented at the Olympic Stadium in Montréal.
In May 1990, Daniel Lavoie launched Long courrier, which reached the top of the charts thanks to the songs Le pape du rap, Qui sait and Jours de plaine, all very intimate songs about his friends, his family and his roots.
His life would take a new turn when he sang at Ottawa’s French Manitoba Festival. Lyricist Luc Plamondon was there. Lavoie brilliantly performed his song Le Blues du Businessman and Plamondon had a revelation: he just found the man who will play the priest Frollo in his new musical, Notre-Dame de Paris, inspired by Victor Hugo’s famous novel. The project was a major success in Paris and London, not to mention the seven million copies the album sold worldwide! Needless to say, Daniel Lavoie’s financial worries are a thing of the past…
Fond of Parisian life, Lavoie agreed to play the Pilot in Richard Cocciante’s musical Le Petit Prince in 2002. For his next project, in 2003, he played the lead role in a television series on the life of Félix Leclerc that was broadcast in Québec and France. In 2004, he launched Comédies humaines, a serious album that is nonetheless filled with tenderness and humour; the following year, he released Moi Mon Félix.
Just over two years went by before he launched the Docteur Tendresse, in April 2007, a 13-song album that he intended to be soft and tender. In 2010, he was enlisted to be part of the magnificent project Douze hommes rapaillés, gathering performers around Gaston Miron’s poems, which won the Félix for Show of the Year—Performer, and the Félix for Album of the Year—Contemporary Folk. That same year, he gave his first concert in Moscow and in December, as a member of the cast of Notre-Dame de Paris, he performed in Kiev, then in Moscow and finally in Saint Petersburg.
The following year, Lavoie released J’écoute la radio, an album of newly arranged hits that included a new song, the title track. A new show takes Lavoie on a tour that lasted nearly two years throughout Québec, as well as in France, Russia and Ukraine. On March 25, 2014, with French production company Le Chant du Monde (a Harmonia mundi label), Lavoie released a new album, La Licorne captive, a musical project by Laurent Guardo exploring classical myths and legends. In parallel, during three years, he hosted a radio show called Lavoie libre on Radio-Canada.
A new album entitled Mes longs voyages was released in September 2016. Produced by Guy St-Onge, the album includes both original songs and covers of songs by Léo Ferré, Alain Bashung, Allain Leprest and Félix Leclerc. He followed the release with the Mes longs voyages tour in February and March 2017 and the spring of 2018.
These last few years, Daniel Lavoie has been part of the cast of the revival of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, reprising his role of Frollo.
He will be back on stage in the spring of 2023 with his faithful musicians to mark the fortieth anniversary of Tension Attention.
He remains one of the most talented singer-songwriters of his generation and one of the most esteemed by his peers, here and in France. Daniel Lavoie also wrote songs for Luce Dufault, Mireille Mathieu, Maurane, Isabelle Boulay, Bruno Pelletier, Florent Pagny, Lara Fabian, Roch Voisine, Céline Dion, Enzo Enzo, Nana Mouskouri and many others.
