An obscure genius of Quebec music has passed away. Producer and composer Denis LePage died Monday morning at the Sacré-Coeur hospital from generalized cancer. He was 74 years old.
His name may not be widely known. But this brilliant musician nevertheless contributed significantly to the global growth of Quebec pop. Trumpeter in the jazz group The Persuaders, then studio keyboardist in demand in the 1970s, Denis LePage had phenomenal dance success with the group Lime in the early 1980s, a duo he formed with his wife Denyse.
Born from the thigh of Limelight, a trendy Montreal nightclub, Lime very quickly crossed the borders of Quebec and Canada. In 1981, the duo topped the disco-dance charts in the United States with the song Your Love. The following year, he reached number six with the single Babe We’re Gonna Love Tonight.
Between 1970s disco and 1980s electro-pop, these two songs give a good idea of the sound of the time. Though the clips – still viewable on YouTube – may make you smile, LePage had unquestionably captured the spirit of the times.
A gifted composer, Denis LePage also created the song Dancin’ the Night Away, for the duo Voggue, which went to number 1 on the American Billboard for 15 weeks in 1980.
Before this international explosion, he had also been part of the groups Kat Mandu and Le Poul, other projects with a funky flavor, prefiguring his dance period.
“Disco in Montreal was him,” sums up entrepreneur and musician Jeff Plante, who worked with Denis LePage a dozen years ago.
All projects combined, Denis LePage would have sold a total of more than 20 million records worldwide, according to an article in the Journal de Montréal published in 2011.
But this success story hides a dark side and a more difficult end of life.
Caught up by his consumption problems, Denis LePage had sold his entire catalog to the company Unidisc, a Montreal giant of world disco. This explaining this, the musician had not been rolling in gold for a long time, when he could have been a millionaire. “He was very bitter. But he had created his misfortune himself, ”sums up Yvon Lafrance, former owner of Limelight and manager of Denis LePage after 2011.
Still, LePage never stopped making music.
At the turn of the 2010s, he had begun a gender transition and hoped to return to success under the name of Nini Nobless, his female alter ego. Armed with his synthesizers, the musician would have produced “the equivalent of eight CDs” of electro-dance music, according to Yvon Lafrance. But commercially speaking, the sauce never really lifted, other than a minor success in Eastern Europe. Lime’s magic was gone, even if her female character had the potential to make an impression.
“The music was good, but the lyrics were on the transgender side and the radios didn’t accept that. He wanted to advance the cause, ”believes Yvon Lafrance.
In recent years, Denis LePage had become more difficult to access. A skilled shooter, he lived in his small apartment in Ahuntsic, with his collection of firearms, which he occasionally exhibited on Nini Nobless’ YouTube channel. His complex personality, flirting with paranoia, had isolated him from part of his entourage. “He was a very intense person. He was great, but it wasn’t always easy to work with him”, summarizes Jeff Plante.
The disease will at least have allowed Denis LePage to reconnect with his daughter Claudine, with whom ties had been broken for fifteen years. “It was the nurse who called me to tell me he was going into palliative care,” she said.
According to Claudine LePage, they talked a lot about music and drawing. But above all their reconciliation, which allowed him to leave in peace. “He was serene…because of the times we spent together…”
