Ginette Reno

Early Life and Career

The daughter of a butcher, Ginette Raynault started out singing in front of her father’s butcher shop in Montreal’s St. Lawrence Market to help draw in customers. She has said that her natural talent for singing was “a gift my mother prayed for.” Ginette sold newspapers to pay for singing lessons and began taking part in amateur singing contests at age 14. These included “Les Découvertes de Jean Simon” at the Café de l'Est in Montreal, where she was ranked first. She performed from 1960 to 1964 in nightclubs and radio and TV studios throughout Quebec. She also took singing lessons with Roger Larivière.

Impresario Jean Simon took her under his wing and abbreviated her surname to Reno. In 1961, her first single, “Non papa” and “J'aime Guy” for Apex (followed by “Roger”), gained her immediate popular acclaim. Her self-titled debut album, released in 1962, was an instant best-seller. It sold 40,000 copies and established the 16-year-old as the Connie Francis of Quebec.

Singing with equal ease in English and French, Reno patterned her career on the US show-business tradition. She was named the “female discovery” at the 1964 Gala des artistes and scored a tremendous hit that year with “Tu vivras toujours dans mon coeur.” Her repertoire subsequently consisted mainly of sentimental ballads.

Reno made the first of many appearances at the Place des Arts (PDA) in 1965 and the National Arts Centre (NAC) in 1969. She performed at the Comédie-Canadienne in 1968 and 1969 and at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in 1974 and 1976. At the Olympia in Paris, she took part with other Quebec artists in the revues Vive le Québec (1967) and Musicorama (1968). The Quebec public voted her Miss Radio-Television in 1968, and she was awarded a trophy at the MIDEM festival in Cannes that year.

She also performed at the Garden of Stars at Expo 67 and won three trophies at the Montreal Festival du disque (most popular singer, strongest commercial value, and best LP). She performed in concerts with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at the PDA and the NAC in 1969. That year, Reno signed a contract with Decca and gave two shows on BBC TV.

Career 1970–89

Ginette Reno returned to London in January 1970 to sing at the Savoy Theatre. In 1971, she hosted a series of programs there with the singer Roger Whittaker. She had a hit in English Canada with “Beautiful Second Hand Man,” which reached No. 6 on the CHUM chart in November 1970. In 1972, she won first prize at the Tokyo International Song Festival for her performance of Les Reed's “I Can't Let You Walk Out of My Life.” She received a Juno Award for Top Female Vocalist in 1970 and for best female vocalist in 1972 and 1973. While continuing to pursue her career in Quebec, she lived in Los Angeles from 1974 to 1976, studying at Lee Strasberg's studio of dramatic art.

With Jean-Pierre Ferland in 1974, Reno recorded “T'es mon amour, t'es ma maîtresse,” another hit. She participated in various programs on CBC TV, including “Bonjour Canada” (1970), “Spécial Ginette Reno” (1972), “Gershwin 76,” “Vingt-cinq ans ensemble” (1977), and “Superstar” (1978 and 1979). She toured various parts of Canada in 1968 and 1970 and in Quebec in 1969, 1970 and 1976. She sang the national anthem at the 1976 Grey Cup and appeared on the Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Dinah Shore TV shows in 1978.

In 1977, Reno established her own record company, Melon-Miel. Her LP Je ne suis qu'une chanson (1979) became her greatest hit and one of the most popular ever in Quebec (387,000 copies sold).

Ginette Reno won the Prix Félix for pop album, best-selling album and female performer of the year in 1980. In 1981, she co-hosted the Juno Awards show with Frank Mills. Numerous tours and several trips to France followed (although she never was successful there). She hosted the French program “Champs-Élysées,” recorded in Quebec with Michel Drucker (1986), and sang with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Théâtre (1987). At the Métrostar gala in 1987, she won awards for the public's most loved star and singer of the year. After the release of the LP Ne m'en veut pas, she travelled across Quebec with the show La Prochaine fois que j'aurai 20 ans.

Acting and Recordings, 1990–Present

Ginette Reno’s career took a turn when she made her film debut in Jean-Claude Lauzon's Léolo (1991). She continued acting in 1994 with the television mini-series Million Dollar Babies/Les jumelles Dionne, about the Dionne quintuplets. She also played the main character in the Franco-Canadian series Une voix en or in 1997. She honed her comedic talents in Denise Filiatrault’s C't'à ton tour Laura Cadieux (1998) and Laura Cadieux... la suite (1999), both of which earned Reno Genie Award and Jutra Award (now Prix Iris) nominations for best lead actress. Reno also received a Jutra Award nomination for Best Actress for Mambo Italiano (2003) and a Genie Award nomination for Le secret de ma mère (2006).

Between acting stints, Reno continued to record. She won a Prix Félix for Album of the Year in 1992 for L'essentiel and in 1996 for La Chanteuse, on which she collaborated with Luc Plamondon. She received the Félix Hommage for lifetime achievement in 1995. In 1998, Reno recorded Love Is All, her first English album since 1979. She followed this with an English Christmas album, The First Noel, and its French counterpart, Un grand noël d'amour (2000), both released through her record label, Melon-Miel.

By the year 2000, Reno had been lauded as a major influence for Quebec artists, including international star Céline Dion. Reno's eight-CD career retrospective was released in 2004. In 2008, Reno brought the house down with a performance of Jean-Pierre Ferland’s “Un peu plus haut, Un peu plus loin” with Dion in front of some 250,000 people on the Plains of Abraham to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City. Reno’s next album, Fais-moi la tendresse (2009), won the Prix Félix for Popular Album of the Year. Its title single was named Popular Song of the Year, and Reno also won the Félix as Female Artist of the Year. She was also nominated for the Juno Fan Choice Award at the Juno Awards in 2010 and 2012.

Acclaim

Ginette Reno’s popularity has not diminished over the years. After her 1977 recital at the PDA, Pierre Beaulieu wrote in La Presse: “What a Colossus of the stage, what a magnificent performer, what a voice, what soul, what warmth she radiates... Ginette Reno is music pure and simple, music with no nationality, no boundaries, ageless, beyond time. Ginette Reno is the soul of music, a succession of notes that she rethinks, reworks, to which she gives new life and finally delivers to us through her own view of things, her warmth, her voice and her incredible talent.” Mireille Simard wrote in Le Devoir in 1984: “All somehow rests on that special timbre that a single breath is sufficient to unleash... She is there in her natural state, with a purity of unreal boundaries.”

Reno is often referred to as “Quebec’s golden voice.” Her greatest hits include such songs as “Les Yeux fermés,” “Aimez-le si fort,” “La Dernière Valse,” “Reste auprès de moi,” and “Le Sable et la mer,” along with “À ma manière” and “Je ne suis qu'une chanson,” composed for her by Diane Juster.

Montreal Canadiens

In April 2014, Ginette Reno was asked by Montreal Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien to sing “O Canada” before Game 3 of the team’s first-round playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Though she hadn’t performed since suffering a heart attack in January, Reno delivered a rousing rendition of the national anthem. After the Canadiens scored 11 seconds into the game, Reno was asked to sign the anthem before Game 4. The team scored two minutes into that game, on their way to sweeping the series.

Reno came to be seen as the team’s lucky charm and appeared again throughout the Canadiens’ playoff run that year. She returned to sign the anthem at Canadiens playoff games in 2015 and 2017, though she was not asked to sign the anthem during the team’s Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.

Honours

In 1982, Ginette Reno became the youngest performer to be named an Officer of the Order of Canada. She received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 1999 and a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000. She was named a Chevalière of the Ordre national du Québec in 2004 and of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France in 2011. Also in 2011, Canada Post issued a stamp in her honour as part of its Canadian Recording Artists series. In 2022, on her 76th birthday, Reno was made a Chevalière of the Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur de France.

Awards

Prix Félix

• Song of the Year (“Je ne suis qu'une chanson”) (1980)
• Best-selling Album of the Year (Je ne suis qu'une chanson) (1980)
• Pop Album of the Year (Je ne suis qu'une chanson) (1980)
• Female Performer of the Year (1980)
• Best-selling Album of the Year (Ne m'en veux pas) (1989)
• Pop Album of the Year (Ne m'en veux pas) (1989)
• Pop Show of the Year (La prochaine fois que j'aurai vingt ans) (1989)
• Pop Album of the Year (L'essentiel) (1992)
• Show of the Year – Performer (L'essentiel... la suite) (1992)
• Prix hommage (1995)
• Pop Album of the Year (La chanteuse) (1996)
• Song of the Year (“Fais-moi la tendresse”) (2009)
• Best-selling Album of the Year (Fais-moi la tendresse) (2009)
• Pop Album of the Year (Fais-moi la tendresse) (2009)
• Female Performer of the Year (2009)
• Pop Album of the Year (La musique en moi) (2011)
• Best-selling Album of the Year (La musique en moi) (2011)
• Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (À jamais) (2019)
• Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (C’est tout moi) (2023)
• Album of the Year (C’est tout moi) (2023)

Juno Awards

• Top Female Vocalist (1970)
• Outstanding Performance of the Year – Female (1972, 1973)
• Best Selling Francophone Album (Un grand Noël amour) (2001)

Others

• Female Discovery of the Year, Gala Meritas (1964)
• Miss radio-télévision, Gala Meritas (1968)
• Prix special, MIDEM (1968)
• Most Popular Singer, Festival du Disque (1968)
• Best-selling Singer, Festival du Disque (1968, 1969)
• Trophée Rolande-Desormeaux, Gala Meritas (1969)
• Gold and Silver Prizes, Yamaha Music Festival (1972)
• Rose d'or, Salon de la femme (1980)
• Officer, Order of Canada (1982)
• Singer of the Year, Prix MetroStar (1987)
• La MetroStar 87, Prix MetroStar (1987)
• Singer of the Year, Prix MetroStar (1988)
• La MetroStar 88, Prix MetroStar (1988)
• Trophée homage, Salon de la femme (1989)
• Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (1999)
• Inductee, Canada's Walk of Fame (2000)
• Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002)
• Chevalière, Ordre national du Québec (2004)
• Grand prix spécial des Amériques, Montréal World Film Festival (2011)
• Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012)
• Chevalière, Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur of France (2022)
• Special Achievement Award, SOCAN (2023)

Select Discography

• Ginette Reno en spectacle au Casa Loma (1966)
• Quelqu'un à aimer (1967)
• Les Grands succès d'une grande vedette, Ginette Reno (1968)
• Ginette Reno (1969)
• Ginette Reno à la Comédie-Canadienne 69 (1969)
• Ginette Reno (1969)
• Beautiful Second Hand Man (1970)
• Touching Me, Touching You (1971)
• Aimez-le si fort (1971)
• Ginette Reno à la Comédie-Canadienne (1971)
• Ombre et soleil (1973)
• Aimons-nous (1974)
• En direct de la Place des arts (1974)
• The Best of Ginette Reno (1975)
• Ce que j'ai de plus beau (1977)
• Trying to Find a Way (1979)
• Je ne suis qu'une chanson (1979)
• Souvenirs tendres (1984)
• Ginette Reno (1985)
• Si ça vous chante/De plus en plus fragile (1986)
• Ne m'en veut pas (1988)
• Ma vie en chanson (1990)
• L'Essentiel (1991)
• Versions Reno (1995)
• La Chanteuse (1997)
• Love Is All (1998)
• Un peu plus haut - le nouveau spectacle (1999)
• Un grand noël d'amour (2000)
• The First Noel (2000)
• Mademoiselle Renobox set (1. Tu vivras toujours, 2. T'es mon amour) (2004)
• Moi c'est Ginettebox set (3. Á ma manière, 4. L'essentiel) (2004)
• Les grands soirsbox set (5. Ma mère chantait toujours, 6. Léolo) (2004)
• Vocally Yours(7. Beautiful Second Hand Man, 8. Somewhere) (2004)
• Fais-moi la tendresse (2009)
• La Musique en moi (2011)
• À jamais (2018)
• C'est tout Moi (2023)