La belle Françoise: the evolution of a traditional song

"La belle Françoise" is a song that appears in Seeking the Center and on my Seeking the Center playlist. I think its background is interesting, and I want to share it with you. 

When I was writing Achille's main scene in Seeking, I looked for a song that could play a certain role in it. (I won't elaborate on that role, because I don't want to spoil the story.) I wanted a traditional voyageur song, because that is a major part of Achille's background and identity. (The voyageurs were the French Canadian paddlers of the birchbark canoes that carried trade goods north and west into the interior of North America, and brought back loads of furs to the companies in Montreal. They used traditional songs to synchronize their paddling. Most of these songs pre-dated France's first settlements in Quebec, so they date back to the 17th century or earlier.)

"La belle Françoise" appears in sources including Grace Lee Nute's The Voyageur and Thomas R. Draughon's Canot d'Écorce: Chansons de Voyageurs. Though it isn't the song most associated with the voyageurs, I chose it because of its minor key, which gives it a melancholy mood, and because of its lyrics, which dramatize the impending separation of two lovers.

In the song, Françoise weeps because her man must go to war, but he assures her that, if she waits for him, he will return and marry her. Their plight echoes the situations of some of my characters. Although it is not actual war that they are going to, they are facing unknown and sometimes hostile situations, away from their homeplaces.

You can listen to different versions of the song on YouTube. I chose Garolou's live version for my Seeking the Center playlist mainly because it makes an exciting finale. But it also represents a further evolution of the song that, although it doesn't pertain to Seeking, is interesting in its own right. 

Garolou was a French-Canadian group active in the 1970s that often took traditional French and French-Canadian chansons (songs) and gave them modern, rock settings. "La belle Françoise" was an early hit for them (mid 1970s). You can hear how they've contemporized it with a Vietnam-era anti-war message by inserting an intense version of "La Marseillaise." The Seeking the Center playlist version is from Garolou's 1997 live Réunion album.

Seeking the Center playlist

Some of the songs that were there for me as I was writing Seeking the Center:

1. Whatta Man - Salt-N-Pepa
2. Silver River - Shingoose (poetry by Duke Redbird)
3. You Really Got Me - The Kinks
4. When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge
5. Look How the Stars Shine for You - Randy Wood
6. Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
7. How You Like Me Now - The Heavy
8. A Case of You - Joni Mitchell
9. Heart of Stone - The Rolling Stones
10. Road to Batoche - Jimmie LaRocque, Gerry McIvor, Kim Chartrand
11. I'll Be There - The Jackson 5
12. Never Never Blues - John Trudell
13. La belle Françoise - Garolou

Here's a link to the Spotify playlist.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot about "What's Love Got To Do With It?" (Tina Turner) - a song that actually appears in Seeking the Center. Just like "Heart of Stone," it should have made it onto the playlist for sure. Remember? Jamie sings it while dancing into in the dressing room just before he meets Deuce for the first time. Anyhow, I snuck it in between The Jackson 5 and John Trudell on the Spotify playlist. Sorry about that!

Getting just a wee bit political, maybe

Last night I attended the concert that showcases and honors this year's National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows. The National Heritage Fellowships are awarded by the Arts Endowment to "recognize the recipients' artistic excellence and support their continuing contributions to our nation's traditional arts heritage."

A basket woven by Theresa Secord, Penobscot Nation

In other words, the awardees are people who have taken a traditional art form--for example, Dakota flute making and performance or Laotian khaen playing, white oak basket making or Huastecan son performance--brought it, through their own personal passion, persistence, and skill, to the next level, and--very importantly--been persistent in their efforts to assure their art's survival by being teachers, spokespeople, and/or advocates.

The concert at which each year's honorees present their art is always an incredibly moving affair, presented by the National Council for the Traditional Arts and a small cadre of devoted folklorists who come back year after year to assist. This year it was broadcast live over the internet, and you can watch it here.

Believe me, I don't want to take anything away from the artists themselves, from the amazing variety and beauty of the traditions represented, or from the profound nature of taking a precious tradition, with deep roots, and carrying it forward to future generations. But to me the evening represented another sort of continuity as well. It began with a set of tunes performed by awardee Billy McComiskey, an Irish button accordion player from Baltimore, joined, to my surprise, by two previous heritage fellowship awardees Mick Moloney, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, and Liz Carroll of Chicago, one of the greatest Irish fiddle players you'll ever have the good fortune to hear. I have special places in my heart for both Mick and Liz, because I remember them as good people and great to work with. But Liz is special to me--I don't know why, maybe because she's a woman and not many years older than I am.

When Liz was awarded her heritage fellowship back in 1994, I was a young person working in the field of folklore in DC, lucky enough to score an invitation to the ceremony on Capitol Hill. First Lady Hillary Clinton officiated, and she was very engaged, taking time to greet and congratulate all the fellows, especially D.L. Menard, a Cajun musician from her home state of Louisiana. But she also expressed particular interest in Liz and in Liz's entourage, which included her two young children.

Twenty-two years later? I don't want to make this post political, but I can't help noting that Liz, her children now grown, continues to honor us with her lively, nuanced fiddle playing, and Mrs. Clinton, now a grandmother, is still seeking to further serve our nation.

I have great admiration for people who show such persistence in their true passion over the course of a lifetime. The wisdom and experience that they have accrued and are so willing to share are things that we can't afford to throw away. 

Métis fiddler Jimmie LaRocque of Turtle Mountain

Back in the 1990s, as production associate for the Folk Masters concert and radio series, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Jimmie LaRocque, a Métis fiddle player from the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota.

I will never forget this remarkably energetic, enthusiastic sixty-something year-old man who drove the entire way from his home near Belcourt, North Dakota (practically on the Canadian border) to Washington, DC (a distance of almost 1600 miles!) and arrived none the worse for wear.

As a young person, Mr. LaRocque absorbed many influences and, like so many musicians, was eager to play the popular music of the day. By age 17 he was in Texas, playing with a band called The Western Kings out of Corpus Christi. Later, he lived in California and played backup fiddle for touring country bands including Grand Ol' Opry performers Kitty Wells, Ray Price and Ernest Tubb.

But he never forgot the traditional tunes that he taught himself to play on his dad's fiddle as a boy. He is quoted in the 1994 Folk Masters program book:

The Indian old-time fiddle music is a lot different. It seems like it's got a lot more meaning. In my mind sometimes I play fiddle here, and I swear to God I close my eyes a little bit and I can see my dad sit there by me with his fiddle. You play this Indian music and then it's like the whole sky, it's like a great big movie camera is showing a big picture on there. On the sky you can see Indians coming on spotted horses and you can see the wind blow.

Mr. LaRocque passed away in 2009.

This link will take you to a short sample of Mr. LaRocque playing the Métis fiddle tune "Road to Batoche" on the Smithsonian Folkways recording Wood That Sings. Batoche (the Smithsonian Folkways listing misspells the name) was a Métis settlement in Saskatchewan and the headquarters of their fight against Canadian forces in 1885. Métis people sometimes call that resistance la guerre nationale "the national war," (i.e., the war of the Métis nation), which gives you a sense of its importance to them as a people.

Batoche is now a Parks Canada National Historic site, as well as the home of "Back to Batoche," the Métis nation's annual commemoration of its culture, traditions and heritage.

Batoche in 1885. Unknown photographer. This image is available from Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec under the reference number P600,S6,D5,P1309. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44641160