An obscure giant of Quebec music has just passed away. Producer and composer Denis Le Page died Monday morning at Sacré-Coeur Hospital from generalized cancer. He was 74 years old.
Denis LePage’s name may not be widely known. But this brilliant musician nevertheless contributed significantly to the global growth of Quebec pop. A trained trumpeter turned studio keyboardist, Denis Le Page enjoyed phenomenal success with the group Lime in the early 1980s, a duo he formed with his wife Denyse.
In 1981, Lime soared to number one on the disco-dance charts in the United States with the song Your Love, then to number six the following year with the single Babe We’re Gonna Love Tonight. Le Page also created the song Dancing the Night Away, for the duo Voggue, which went to No. 1 on the US Billboard for 15 weeks in 1980. Before this international explosion, he had been part of the groups Le Puls and Kat Mandu. He is said to have sold more than 20 million records worldwide. “Disco in Montreal was Denis Le Page,” sums up his former collaborator Jeff Plante.
In recent years, he continued to make music, although in a more obscure way, in an electro-dance style, with many synthesizers. Reclusive and hard to get to, he now presented himself as Nini Nobless, a female character who was an extension of her own transition.
