Madame Bolduc (a.k.a. La Bolduc)

Early Life and Family

Born into a large family of Irish and French Canadian descent, Mary Travers was a gifted child who learned easily to play the violin, harmonica, button accordion and mouth harp. She left home at 13 to earn a living in Montreal. To pay her way there, she played the violin in the main street of Newport while selling Red Pills, a patent medicine.

In Montreal, she worked as a domestic. She married Édouard Bolduc, a plumber, on 17 August 1914. They raised a large family together while living in poverty. Tragically, nine of their 13 children died of childhood illnesses.

Career

Madame Bolduc began to perform publicly out of economic necessity. After she accompanied the singer Ovila Légaré in a recording session, Madame Bolduc was recommended to Conrad Gauthier, organizer of the Veillées du bon vieux temps at the Monument National. She was engaged at first as a fiddler, but in 1927 Gauthier encouraged her to sing for the first time in public. Such was her success that Gauthier suggested she compose some songs. Though she was scarcely known, her recordings of “La Cuisinière” and “La Servante,” issued on a Starr 78, quickly sold some 12,000 copies — an unprecedented success in Quebec at the time.

Other songs and recordings followed that enjoyed great popularity. Her songs were imbued with humour and frankness, and her inimitable style was embellished with turlutages — comic ritornelles produced by clicking the tongue against the palate. She performed and recorded tirelessly in Canada and the US, completing 85 songs on 43 78s for the Starr label before her death from cancer in 1941 at the age of 46. (Apex and MCA Coral have since reissued many of her songs.)

Likeable, joyous and dynamic, Madame Bolduc composed her songs as she lived — wilfully and intuitively, guided by an uncommon sense of observation. She was Canada's first chansonniere in the true sense of the word, partly because she sang in her naturally heavy Gaspesian accent. As folklorist Monique Jutras has said, “That was revolutionary at the time. She was our first French folk singer — the first person to speak the ordinary language of ordinary people.”

Bolduc’s songs deal with real life. Seen as a whole, they vividly reflect the particular climate of the 1930s in Quebec. (See also The Great Depression in Canada.) The daily problems and material difficulties of ordinary people are reflected in such songs as “Le Commerçant des rues,” “L'Enfant volé,” “Les Cinq Jumelles,” “Les Colons canadiens,” “La Grocerie du coin,” “Les Agents d'assurance,” “Les Conducteurs de chars” and others.

Tributes

LPs celebrating the music of La Bolduc have been made by Jeanne D'Arc Charlebois and Jean Carignan (Hommage à Madame Bolduc), Marthe Fleurant (La Bolduc'68), André Gagnon (his variations on 11 of her songs, Les Turluteries) and by the rap group the French B, which recorded a modern version of “La Bastringue” in 1991. In 1984, Jeanne d'Arc Charlebois devoted a recital to La Bolduc in Montreal.

A prize bearing La Bolduc’s name was awarded to Claude Léveillée at the 1966 Festival du disque in Montreal. Jean-Paul Riopelle's painting “La Bolduc” hangs in the foyer of the Place des Art's Salle Wilfrid Pelletier. At least two biopics have been made about La Bolduc’s rags-to-riches life and career: Madame La Bolduc (1992), written by and starring Jacqueline Barrette; and La Bolduc (2018), which won several Prix Iris, including one for Best Actress for Debbie Lynch-White’s portrayal of La Bolduc.

Honours and Legacy

La Bolduc has had a profound influence on the evolution of the chanson in Quebec. Though she has had many imitators, she has had no equals. She has become a legend, and her work may be considered a prototypical and permanent part of Quebec's musical legacy. “Her songs have struck me for their reckless verve and unique twist of the tongue in the manner of the singers of the true soil,” said Marius Barbeau. Clémence Desrochers, Luc Plamondon, Pauline Julien, Plume Latraverse and others have claimed the legacy of one who has often been called the “first committed singer of Quebec.”

In 1991, the Maison du pressoir in Montreal devoted an exhibition entitled Bonjour Madame Bolduc to her. The Musée de la Gaspésie in Gaspé holds numerous objects and documents relating to her. Her hometown of Newport also maintains a permanent exhibit on her life and work. A park in Montreal was named in her honour in 1991, and Canada Post issued a stamp in her honour in 1994.

In 2002, the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada named La Bolduc a MasterWorks honoree. In 2003, she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. On 20 February 2016, the 75th anniversary of her death, the Quebec government named La Bolduc a person of historical importance — a gesture made under the province’s Cultural Heritage Act.

(See also Chanson in Quebec; Chansonniers.)