Separating Ginette from Céline is not easy. In all the polls, one or the other is the favorite of Quebecers.
But this Friday, August 18, on the Magdalen Islands, there is no doubt: the favorite is Ginette. When I arrive at the Jean Coutu pharmacy in La Vernière on the island of Cap-aux-Meules, the car park is crowded and there are cars parked on both sides of the main road.
A line of onlookers forms in front of the building: women, men and a few teenagers. Everyone is waiting for a guard to drive this strange procession forward. So what’s going on? This is the first time I’ve seen such a queue at the pharmacy, even at the height of COVID.
The Madelinots queued up at the Jean Coutu pharmacy in Cap-aux-Meules on Friday to meet Ginette Reno. Photo by Facebook @JeanCoutuCapauxMeules
Not twenty paces from the entrance, a security guard blocks my way. In a polite but firm tone, he asks me what I do at Jean Coutu. Here’s a question! I’m going to buy my wife calcium tablets and razor blades for myself. “It’s okay, go ahead!” When I open the door, I understand everything: these people standing in the endless line are either holding a book or an album.
The Holy Grail!
Sitting at a small table full of admirers who are in a hurry to see her up close, to talk to her and even to touch her, Ginette Reno, with bright eyes and a happy face, pen in hand, quickly scribbles a few things and signs the book or album presented to him. She then puts it back on with a smile so sweet everyone would kiss Ginette if it weren’t for so many onlookers and especially if it wasn’t for that security guard watching the grain ready to stop. Outbursts of affection, they’re too spontaneous.
I’ve seen a lot of book signings in my life. In bookstores and at book fairs. But I don’t remember seeing rows of admirers so respectful and waiting so long to touch the Holy Grail. Ginette really is the Holy Grail for Quebecers. She’s a precious stone we’ve cherished for six decades, a singer who comforts when she “shows tenderness,” who transports when she sings “a little bit higher, a little bit further,” a sorceress who ends up capturing the Canadians Conquering the Stanley Cup as long as his voice reaches the top of the Bell Center and the borders of Quebec!
Is that a good deal?
Ginette is known to be an artist with business acumen, which is not common, but it was the brave producer Nicolas Lemieux (Montréal Symphonique, GSI Musique, oldest record label) who would have had the idea to sell Ginette. her autobiography and her new album C’est tout moi exclusively at Jean Coutu pharmacies. A good flash as there are 380 Jean Coutu and only 160 bookstores in Quebec.
The affair didn’t go like a letter in the mail. Booksellers came out and denounced the blasphemy of ignoring the natural distribution chain of books. For her part, Lemieux swears that Ginette will make a lot more money this way than if she had followed the chain. Open and transparent like our Ginette, we hope that one day she will tell us if she got as good a deal with Lemieux as it seems!
