So Ren? Ang?lil, as the Voice of God, turns down a recently-deceased hopeful at the Gates, claiming there?s no more room. But when he hears the seeker is from Quebec, he relents because there?s always place in heaven for a ?bon vieux qu?b?cois.?
Can you make this stuff up? Of course not. But you can find this 1971 track, All?luia! ? recorded by Angelil and his former partner in Les Baronets, Pierre Labelle ? on the delightfully weird R?surrection!: Rock chr?tien et messes rythm?es du Qu?bec (1964-1978), a fascinating and enchanting compilation of Quebec Christian rock.
These mostly wonderful slices of pop history were recorded when Quebec ? during and after the Quiet Revolution ? ?was shaking off its strong emotional ties to the Roman Catholic Church and becoming a secular society. But in these buried treasures and ultra-rare curios, compiled by Quebec pop music historian and blogger S?bastien Desrosiers, you can also hear the Church and members of its congregation trying a last-ditch attempt to make God hip again ? with guitars and a backbeat.
The Church was addressing its relations with modern society at the Second Vatican Council, which was held between 1962 and 1965. In the wake of that philosophical turning point, the Church?s doomed struggle to recapture the hearts of Quebecers can be heard in these 17 tracks, as can the people turning away.
Those old who are old enough to remember folk masses with jangling guitars and tambourines will immediately feel at home with the lo-fi opener Raconte-moi, by Les Nocturnes, featuring Ren? Dup?r? (who later achieved fame as a Cirque du Soleil composer), Gloire?? toi, tu viens nous sauver, which sounds like a church basement offshoot of the musical Hair and J?ai grand desir de votre amour by the 20-piece teenage choir Les Allegros.
The clergy get in on the act, too, with the gently rocking J?sus, recorded in 1966 by Father Bernard Tremblay and les Nouveaux All?luias, Ma petite esp?rance, a catchy toe-tapper by Les Messag?res de Joie, two Grey Nuns from Sudbury, Ont. and the superb Coupe tes longs cheveux by Yvon Hubert, a Franciscan minister who hosted Le Jour du Seigneur for Radio Canada.
But the pull of the outside world can be heard in the late 1960s and 1970s, echoed in the power-trio rock riff on the irreverent Dieu ne se mange plus (Il se fume, of course), Steve Fiset?s hard-rocking Rapelle-toi Seigneur, with a wailing solo straight out of Cream-era Eric Clapton and the satirical joual of Pogne pas l? narfs by the non-clerical comedy duo Soeur Charlotte and Pere Herve.
Worth the price of admission alone is the incredibly strange Pierre, a 1969 track by Michel Conte, who toured churches that year with bike gang members joining him on stage. In this brilliant, scenery-chewing track, which manages to sound like a low-budget musical crossed with garage-band funk and prog-rock, the apostle Peter works in a grocery store and finds himself fascinated by Jesus, who is the leader of a motorcycle gang.
Like I said, you really can?t make this stuff up.
Rating: ****
Podworthy: Pierre by Michel Conte
Here?s a track by Le P?re Tremblay et les Nouveaux Alleluias, which is not on the album, but would have fit right in:
Click here to hear Raconte-moi by Les Nocturnes and get a free download of Yvon Hubert?s Coupe tes longs cheveux, both from R?surrection! And click here to check out S?bastien Desrosiers?s Patrimoine PQ blog.
Bernard Perusse
Twitter: @bernieperusse
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