Biography:Tommy Duchesne

Tommy Duchesne
Given name:	Tommy
Middle name:
Family name:	Duchesne
Place of birth:	Val-Jalbert, Lac St-Jean, Quebec
Place of death:	Montreal
Year of birth:	1909
Year of death:	1986
Profile:	Composer, Musician
Source of information:	https://archive.org/details/lespionniersdudi0000labb/page/44/mode/2up

Biographical notes

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TOMMY DUCHESNE (1909- ) was born in Val-Jalbert, a village in the Lac St-Jean region, where he learned to play both the violin and the accordion. Duchesne originally played a small accordion, but later in his career migrated to a larger, multi-row chromatic instrument. When in his twenties, Duchense moved to Montreal where he performed in a variety show at the Théâtre Nationalas a musician and actor. He studied music with Rodolphe Plamondon and the button accordion with Lucien Bickley. After a few years he got a job in the J. A. Turcot music store and made his radio debut on the program "Mus-ke-gee" (CKAC). In 1932, Duchesne came to the attention of Roméo Beaudry, director of the Compo Company (Starr Gennett records) who offered him his first chance to record, and, in 1935, he formed the group Les Chevaliers du folklore with the fiddler Albert Allard and the guitarist Tony Ouellette. Duchesne and his group performed often on CKAC radio, and, in 1938, they provided the music for the first series of the show Le Réveil Rural. A year later, still at Radio-Canada, Duchesne and the chevaliers became the stars of a series of broadcasts sponsored by the L.L. Grothe company, a series that continued until 1947. A highlight of this period, in 1941, was when Duchesne and the group played two weeks in a row at the Palais Montcalm in Québec, to a sold-out crowd.

As with many performers during World War II, Duchesne toured military camps throughout Canada, entertaining the troops, sometimes in the company of such performers as Madame Bolduc, Ti-Jean Carignan, Oscar Morin, Isidore Soucy, Saturno Gentiletti and Denise Émond. Though his long recording career of some forty years he had a large number of hits including "Valse Denise," "Breakdown de Beauceville," "Reel de Tommy" and "Reel de Sainte-Anne." Although Duchesne's popularity as an accordionist declined in the 1950s, he was on the "Swing la baquaise" team (CKVL, 1950-1951?), hosted the "Tommy Duchesne" radio program (CKVL, 1952), and cut new recordings for Alouette (1950-1952), the new record label that Rosaire Archambault had just founded. In early 1957, he appeared every Saturday noon with his Chevaliers du Québec on "Samedi terroir," broadcast on CJMS. Tommy Duchesne continued to perform live and record on the Bonanza label until 1974. He died in Montréal on April 5, 1986

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