Quebec music legend Jean-Pierre Ferland is being honoured today with a national funeral in Montreal.
The service began at 11 a.m. at the downtown Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, with an urn containing the singer’s remains carried into the church to the accompaniment of a violin and cello arrangement of his 1968 classic song “Je reviens chez nous.”
Ferland, who died of natural causes on April 27 at the age of 89 after several months in hospital, drew a full crowd of Quebecers who came to say their final farewells. Mourners filled the church pews, wearing the colour yellow in tribute to the singer’s 1970 hit album “Jaune.”
Quebec Premier François Legault was the first to pay his respects.
“Jean-Pierre Ferland was a genius with words and music, a genius that touched the lives of Quebecers,” he said.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Legault, describing the impact of “Jaune.” “I was thirteen at the time, and for us it was a revolution. It was just as good as the Beatles, but it was in French and it was a Quebecer.”
Mourners also heard from Julie Anne Saumur, Ferland’s wife of sixteen years.
“Jean-Pierre loved his fans, and I was his biggest one,” she said.
Pianist and composer François Cousineau, a frequent Ferland collaborator who produced his 1992 album “Bleu, Blanc, Blues,” was one of the people who performed at the funeral.
In an interview held ahead of the service, Cousineau described Ferland as a charming friend with a great sense of humour.
“He’s among the greatest,” said Cousineau. “He was a poet of love and a poet of life, that’s how I’d put it, because the thing he wanted most in life was to be loved.”
Danick Trottier, a music professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said Ferland was Quebec’s Joni Mitchell or Neil Young, fellow singer-songwriters known for both their music and their words.
While the first decades of his career were focused strictly on making music, Ferland became known more as a performer in later years through appearances on various TV programs, including Quebec’s version of the reality show “The Voice.”
It was during this phase that Ferland became endeared to Quebecers, Trottier said.
“In the ’80s and ’90s, he began to be a kind of a major figure in Quebec show business, and then people began to love him and to say, ‘That’s our love singer,’” said Trottier.