Joe Bocan

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Joe Bocan
Background information
Birth nameJohanne Beauchamp
Born1957
Genrespop music
Occupation(s)singer, actress, radio host
Years active1980s–present

Joe Bocan is the stage name of Johanne Beauchamp (born September 8, 1957), a Canadian pop singer and actress from Quebec.[1] She is best known for her 1989 single "Repartir à zéro".[1]

Background[edit]

Beginning her career in theatre,[2] she later began performing as a folk singer and won an award from the Festival international de la chanson de Granby in 1983.[3]

By 1985, she was performing a regular show, Paradoxale, at Le Milieu in Montreal.[2] The show incorporated some of the multimedia performance techniques then being used by contemporaneous artists such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson and Jane Siberry.[2] In 1986, she was given her first television special on Télévision de Radio-Canada,[4] and was one of the performers at Canada's first major benefit concert for HIV/AIDS alongside Michel Louvain, Peter Pringle, Denny Christianson and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.[5] During this era, she also had a regular acting role on the Quebec children's television series Minibus.[3] She won a Félix Award for Best Pop Show in 1986 for Paradoxale.[6]

Bocan also played the role of Carmen Sandiego in the French-Canadian version of Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? titled À la poursuite de Carmen Sandiego (Translation: In Pursuit of Carmen Sandiego) which lasted from 1998-1999.

Recording career[edit]

Her self-titled debut album was released in 1988, and spawned singles including "Paradoxale", "On parle des yeux" and "Repartir à zéro".[7] She led the 1989 Félix nominations with 10 nods, but won only the award for best pop-rock show that year.[8] The following year, she won the Félix for Best Female Singer.[9]

She followed up with Les Désordres in 1991,[10] and had another hit single with "Apocalypso". In this era, she continued to take acting roles in television series such as Piège infernal and La Misère des riches.[10] While filming La Misère des riches, she met musician and actor Charles Biddle, Jr., the son of legendary Canadian jazz musician Charlie Biddle; they soon became a couple and later married.[11]

She released two further albums[12][13] and a greatest hits compilation in the 1990s, and the children's album La Comtesse d'Harmonia fait le tour du monde in 2001.[14] Her further acting roles included the films Meurtre en musique and The Ideal Man (L'Homme idéal), and the children's television series Ramdam.[15]

Following La Comtesse d'Harmonia, she left the music business for several years, teaching theatre at the École des Arts de la Scène in Joliette. She returned to music in the 2010s with a second children's album, La Comtesse d'Harmonia - Pour faire danser la terre, in 2011 and a new adult pop album, La loupe, in 2013.[1]

A longtime ally of the LGBT community in Quebec, she debuted in 2015 as a radio host on Montreal's new LGBT-focused radio station CHRF.[16] She was cohost with Miguel Doucet of Les Pétards, a daily arts and culture magazine show[17] until the station discontinued its LGBT format in December.

In 2020, Bocan, Marie Carmen and Marie Denise Pelletier announced the joint concert tour Pour une histoire d'un soir, although the tour was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec and instead launched in 2022.[18] The tour won the Félix Award for Variety or Reinterpretation Concert of the Year at the 44th Félix Awards.[19]

Discography[edit]

  • Joe Bocan (1988)
  • Les désordres (1991)
  • Le baiser (1994)
  • Regards (1997)
  • La Comtesse d'Harmonia fait le tour du monde (2001)
  • La Comtesse d'Harmonia - Pour faire danser la terre (2011)
  • La loupe (2013)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Joe Bocan: repartir à zéro". La Presse, June 10, 2014.
  2. ^ a b c "She's no ordinary Joe; Singer Bocan could revive Quebec's pop scene". Montreal Gazette, November 22, 1985.
  3. ^ a b "Fresh voice in Quebec music". The Globe and Mail, January 22, 1986.
  4. ^ "Story of small-town orchestra will put a song in your heart". Montreal Gazette, january 15, 1986.
  5. ^ "AIDS benefit a Canadian first". Montreal Gazette, April 23, 1986.
  6. ^ "St-Clair walks off with four Felixes". The Globe and Mail, October 28, 1986.
  7. ^ "Quebec singer Joe Bocan to sign autographs". Ottawa Citizen, June 13, 1989.
  8. ^ "Roch Voisine cleans up; Lance et Compte star, pop singer skates off with four ADISQ awards". Montreal Gazette, October 16, 1989.
  9. ^ "Dion turns down English-artist Felix; Late Gerry Boulet is among other winners at ADISQ gala". Montreal Gazette, October 22, 1990.
  10. ^ a b "Bocan sets out to reprise debut success; New album is more radical that first: singer". Montreal Gazette, September 19, 1991.
  11. ^ "Bocan, Biddles: together in love and music; One of Quebec's premier show-business couples teams up for stage show". Montreal Gazette, February 6, 1993.
  12. ^ "Joe Bocan - Le Baiser". Discogs. 1994. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  13. ^ "Joe Bocan - Regards". Discogs. 1998. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  14. ^ La Comtesse d'Harmonia fait le tour du monde by Joe Bocan, retrieved 2019-09-16
  15. ^ Décroche!, retrieved 2019-09-16
  16. ^ "La chanteuse Joe Bocan de retour comme animatrice à la radio". La Presse, February 1, 2015.
  17. ^ "La chanteuse Joe Bocan coanimera «Les Pétards»". TVA Nouvelles, February 7, 2015.
  18. ^ Frédérique De Simone, "«Pour une histoire d'un soir»: un retour en grand". Le Journal de Montréal, May 22, 2022.
  19. ^ Louis-Philippe Labrèche, "Les résultats du Premier Gala de l’ADISQ 2022". Le Canal Auditif, November 2, 2022.
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