Mes Aïeux () is a neo-traditional

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

folk music group founded in 1996.

Style

Although a leader of the Quebec " neo-traditional" scene, the band takes a modern slant on that style, borrowing stories and characters from

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

(the devil, the

chasse-galerie ''La Chasse-galerie'', also known as "The Bewitched Canoe" or "The Flying Canoe", is a popular French-Canadian tale of lumberjacks from camps working around the Gatineau River who make a deal with the devil, a variant of the Wild Hunt. Its best-k ...

, the shepherdess, the

coureur des bois A coureur des bois (; ) or coureur de bois (; ) were independent entrepreneurial French Canadian traders who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by exchanging various European i ...

, drinking songs, etc.) to write about modern themes with a touch of humor. These themes include

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

(''Qui nous mène?''), politics (''Ça va mal''), criticism and mockery of the

Quiet Revolution The Quiet Revolution () was a period of socio-political and socio-cultural transformation in French Canada, particularly in Quebec, following the 1960 Quebec general election. This period was marked by the secularization of the government, the ...

(''Dégénérations/Le reel du fossé''), over-medicating (''Remède miracle''), the frenetic pace of modern life (''Train de vie/le surcheval'', ''Continuer pareil''), recent Québécois history (''2096 (chanson à boire)''), etc. Some of their songs involve personalities from Quebec history such as " La Corriveau" (''La Corrida de la Corriveau''), " The Great Antonio" (''Antonio'') and " Alexis le Trotteur" (''Train de vie/le surcheval''). The band also has written humorous songs about Québécois

cultural Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

phenomena, such as

poutine Poutine () is a dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with a hot brown gravy. It emerged in Quebec in the late 1950s in the Centre-du-Québec region, though its exact origins are uncertain, and there are several competing claims regar ...

(''Hommage en grain'').

History

In November 2005 their album ''En famille'' went platinum (100,000 copies sold) and their two earlier albums, ''Ça parle au diable'' and ''Entre les branches'' both went gold (50,000 copies sold). In December 2006, ''En famille'' was certified double platinum (200,000 copies sold) and their album ''Tire-toi une bûche'' went gold after three weeks. In 2005 Mes Aïeux was honoured with a

Félix Award The Félix Award ( is an award, given by the ''Association du disque, de l'industrie du spectacle québécois'' (ADISQ) on an annual basis to artists working in the music and humor industry in the Canadian province of Quebec. The award The firs ...

for the category of Best Contemporary Folk Album for ''En famille'', in addition to being nominated for Group of the Year. In 2007 Mes Aïeux won 3

Félix Awards Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

for the Group of the year, Best Selling Album and Song of the Year.

Line-up

As of May 10, 2018.

Current members

* Marie-Hélène Fortin -

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

(1996–present) * Stéphane Archambault -

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...

(1996–present) * Frédéric Giroux -

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...

(1996–present) * Marc-André Paquet -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

(1996–present) * Benoît Archambault -

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

percussions A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

(1996–present) * Luc Lemire -

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

(1996–present)

Former members

* Éric Desranleau -

(1996-2011)

Discography

Since their founding, the group has released six albums: * ''Ça parle au diable'' (2000) * ''Entre les branches'' (2001) * ''En famille'' (2004) * ''Tire-toi une bûche'' (Live) (2006) * ''La ligne orange'' (2008) * ''À l'aube du printemps'' (2012) #5 CAN

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mes Aieux Musical groups established in 1996 Musical groups from Montreal 1996 establishments in Quebec Canadian Folk Music Award winners