Donald Lautrec

Donald Lautrec (born Donald Bourgeois, July 13, 1940 in Jonquière, Québec) is a Canadian (Quebec) singer and actor.

With a friend in 1957, Lautrec created the acrobatic duo, Don and Lee, which performed on trampolines throughout Canada and the United States. He then mixed in the entertainment world by working as a lighting technician, a master of ceremonies in several Montreal cabarets and, for a short time, as a bodyguard to Québécois singer Michel Louvain. He then met impresario Yvan Dufresne, who had discovered Louvain, and asked him to help launch his own singing career. Dufresne accepted and, in 1961, booked Lautrec in the Hotel Central Saint-Martin in Laval, Quebec. That year Dufresne also arranged for Lautrec to record his first 45 rpm, Personne au monde (No One in the World).

In the following years, Lautrec became one of Quebec's top pop music stars. In 1964, he popularized the ska, a dance inspired by Jamaican ska with the songs C'est le Ska (That's Ska) and Manon, viens danser le ska (Manon, Come and Dance the Ska). In 1965 and 1966, he grew his success with Tu dis des bêtises (You're Talking Nonsense), Action and Loins dans ma campagne (Deep in My Countryside) which he sang in the movie Pas de vacances pour les idoles (No Holiday for Idols). In 1966 he travelled to France where he participated in television and radio, and received the Newcomer of the Year Award at the Gala des Artistes.

In 1967 Lautrec was selected to sing Expo 67's theme song Un jour, un jour (an English version was also recorded as Hey Friend, Say Friend), composed by Stéphane Venne. That summer his French interpretation of the Procol Harum song, A Whiter Shade of Pale—titled Le jour du dernier jour (The Day of the Final Day) -- reached hit status. In the fall, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) sent him to represent Canada at the Sopot International Song Festival in Sopot, Poland, where he won third prize for his rendition of La Manic, and at the International Festival of Popular Song in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1968, he toured France with internationally renowned Greek songstress Nana Mouskouri.

In 1969, Lautrec definitively abandoned the yé-yé style with the release of songs like Eloise, Hallelujah (The Flowers of the Sun) and Hosanna, a French-language interpretation of Neil Diamond's Holly Holy. In 1969 and 1971, this success led to the CBC variety show Donald Lautrec Chaud (Donald Lautrec Hot).

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