Prog Recommendations/Featured albums - Serge Fiori / Richard Séguin

http://www.progquebec.com/index.html - http://www.progquebec.com/index.html

"Harmonium's Serge Fiori and Séguin's Richard Séguin were already aware of each other's talents, several years before their sole album as a duo. The pair appeared side by side as backup singers for Gilles Valiquette's album "Valiquette est en ville" in 1976. Already, the two's voices blended magnificently. It was during this same year that Séguin (the group) packed it in for good, and Richard participated as backup singer for Harmonium's "L'Heptade". Harmonium, in turn, sees things slow down to a full stop in 1977. Both Fiori and Séguin were looking for other outlets which could sustain their creativity, resulting in "Deux cents nuits à l'heure" in 1978. This album, marrying the pair's progressive and balladeer sides, sees the continuous participation of the majority of Harmonium's most recent line-up. Of all the album's tracks, the ones composed as a duo would be the most adventurous, with songs seeing tempo, rhythmic, and even stylistic changes throughout their length. Séguin's personal numbers foreshadow the compositional style he would continue to follow for his first solo album.

An extremely excellent album, they would be compensated for their efforts with several hundred thousand copies in sales. Séguin would next decide to go acoustic for his first solo album, before returning to a sound similar to Fiori-Séguin (minus the progressive aspects) for his second solo album. Fiori would cull songs and segments from the album for the live set of a reunited Harmonium, summoned by Québec premier René Lévesque for a Californian tour of Québec artists. (Jeff Fisher, one of Fiori-Séguin's keyboardists, would replace Serge Locat within Harmonium, and dominates the latter group's version of Fiori-Séguin's radio hit "Viens danser" as presented in the short film "Harmonium in California" by the National Film Board.) Fiori would soon retreat from the music world for several years, returning in the mid-1980's with a sound reflecting the era. Fiori-Séguin's sole album is the only remaining document of the brief time when the two singer-songwriters succeeded in marrying progressive notions to popular music, all the while being heralded by the Quebec public. Although if a Fiori webchat from 2004 points towards anything regarding the duo, it would be a passive interest in reuniting...."

BTW an excellent addition to ProgFolk