On a des ailes (mais on n'est pas des anges) - Stephen Faulkner

Born in 1954 in Montreal, Stephen Faulkner fits better than nearly anybody the tag "independent artist". His shifting styles and unflinching artistic principles have ensured him a relative anonymity that is completely at odds with the recognition given him by his peers.

He remains an enigma, a bit like Neil Young's image was at the beginning, when Young's manager Elliott Roberts purposely draped his artists in a cloak of publicity-shyness in order to augment their appeal. However, what works in a huge market like the United States tends to transfer into no visibility in a miniscule but competitive music market like Quebec's.

He first became well-known as Plume Latraverse's guitarist and songwriting partner in the early seventies. Plume gave him the nickname "Cassonade" and it was under that name that he recorded his first, country-flavoured album. "Si j'avais un char" ("If I had a car") became a Québécois classic, but relatively few connect that song to the name Stephen Faulkner, even if it's been sung around countless summer evening campfires - it was recorded under the name Cassonade.

Faulkner's refusal to play the publicity game hobbled his ability to capitalize on his excellent artistic output, characterized by such albums as "A cheval donné on r'garde pas la bride" (Don't Look A Gift Horse in the Mouth") in 1980 and "Caboose" (which won a country music Félix in 1992).

A CD anthology featuring his first two albums came out during the 90s and the new century saw him taking a jazzy turn with the excellent "Tesson d'auréole" for which he received the Félix as singer-songwriter of the year in 2001. An live collection of stripped-down versions of his impressive catalogue came out not long after ("Capturé vivant") and he was back to his country-rock roots in 2004 with "Train de vie", recorded with the help of "les Cheminots", featuring Éloi Painchaud on harmonica.

By his public pronouncements on the subject of song pirating and by the fact that he has no official home page on the Web at the moment, Stephen Faulkner appears to have rejected cultivating an Internet presence for the moment. His albums are nearly impossible to find on traditional record store shelves, as several of the companies with which he has recorded have closed shop. Still, he is well loved by his fans and extremely well respected by his peers. He will always be a songwriting giant of Quebec popular music history. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.