Roch Voisine in Concert
Since the late 1980s, Roch Voisine has been a rock in the world of Francophone pop — a redoubtable hitmaker blessed with a rich, velvet-smooth voice and matinee-idol good looks. You could say the New Brunswick native was born to be a star — his first-ever singing gig was reportedly before 50,000 people at a Canada Day festival in Montreal in 1986.
After building his profile by starring in the popular prime-time hockey drama Lance et compte, Voisine released his debut album, Hélène, in 1989. Thanks to singles like the urgent, synth-pumped "Avant de partir" and the tender, lighter-waving acoustic title track "Hélène," not only was Voisine established as a star in Quebec (to the tune of 3 million albums sold), but across Europe as well.
However, the English chorus he dropped into "Hélène" betrayed a desire to reach audiences beyond Francophones. Voisine's 1990 follow-up, Double, was a double-album divided evenly between French and English songs, and a harbinger of a discography that alternates between the two languages.
Following a massively successful European tour (which coincided with the unveiling of his wax statue at Paris' Musée Grévin), Voisine released I'll Always Be There, a 1993 collaboration with adult-contemporary architect David Foster, while 1996's Kissing Rain saw him team up with soft-rock maestro Richard Marx.
On top of racking up several gold and platinum discs and numerous honors over the years (including two Juno Awards and an induction into the Order of Canada), Voisine has also been an active supporter of various humanitarian causes, joining UNICEF's mission in Africa and working with charities for AIDS relief.
In 2008, he entered an intriguing new phase of his career with his Americana project, a three-album series recorded in Nashville and California that saw him cover songs by the likes of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel. His 2017 release, Devant Nous, finds Voisine back in his natural element, crooning soulful adult-contemporary Franco-pop with modern production touches.