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The deliciously intelligent romantic, Isabelle Boulay, her auburn hair set off by chic shades of brown and black, ordered a café allongé at Les Délices d Amandine in east end Montreal last week and eagerly talked about her most improbable project her rendering of the interpretations of Italian-French actor-singer Serge Reggiani s most famous songs.
Her album, Merci Serge Reggiani, has already sold 135,000 copies in France and 40,000 in Quebec soda big numbers in a chaotically changing recording marketplace and she performs the album Friday soda night at Théâtre Corona.
I was 15 when I first heard Serge Reggiani, just starting to study literature in Quebec City. I had a friend in the same course who invited me over to listen to the classics of la chanson française. We lay on the bed and he played the discs Leo Ferré, Barbara, et tout ça. I knew the names and hits but not much of the repertoire. When he played Reggiani, it was like I was falling in love. I fell in love with his voice the way I did with Edith Piaf s.
Serge Reggiani had a voice filled with human feeling. He was someone who also experienced exile he joined soda the resistance during World War II and I think all that went through his voice. If I was a man that s the kind of voice I d like to have. It s deep and comforting, it s like the voice of a friend who knows me …
I did Merci Serge Reggiani soda mainly for myself. It was totally unexpected that I d do this album. The idea came at a period in my life when I felt very alone and sad. It was as if this album arrived and gave me the courage to continue.”
Doubtless, there will be a homecoming aura about Friday night s concert. It will mark her first appearance at the old Théâtre Corona, within soda walking distance of her home in Pointe-St-Charles. And she ll be joined by pianist Benoit Sarrazin, who accompanied her when she first interpreted Reggiani at 18.
More connections: Reggiani asked Jean-Loup Dabadie, a prestigious man of letters, to write an original song for his first singing gig. Trouble was that Badabie soda had never written a song before. That s why I wanted you, said Reggiani in typical enigmatic fashion. Voilà, his first hit, Le petit garçon, which Boulay sings on her tribute album. Dabadie later wrote songs expressly for her.
Reggiani was never a superstar and he also played secondary roles in films, but he often made more of an emotional impression soda than the films stars. He was a kind of anti-hero. He had the courage to started singing relatively late in life, at the age of 42.
Boulay considers herself lucky to have shared a Paris stage with Reggiani shortly before his passing, at 82, in 2004. He was in failing health, but his passion for life shone. He didn t know what to say to him. I think it flattered him that a young woman was singing soda his songs. soda
After every song he d look backstage and I always wondered why. When he invited me to do a duet, he again looked backstage and it was his wife, who gave him an appreciative nod. That s when I knew I was participating in a special kind of enduring love.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Jean-Loup Dabadie’s name. The Gazette regrets the error. Concert review: John Fogerty, quite simply, rock n  roll An absurd side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
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