OLD FRENCH SONGS OF LE DETROIT

Since 1988, Marcel Bénéteau has been collecting traditional French folksongs of this area. It is easily the healthiest traditional genre still found in the local communities. More than 2,000 versions have been transcribed and catalogued. But only the oldest members of the community can still join in the chorus and sing the old ballads that once rang out all along the strait. This magnificent repertoire — one of the oldest and most diverse to have survived anywhere in French-speaking North America — now exists only in the memory of an ever-diminishing group.

Detroit River Francophones once knew a vast repertoire of old traditional folksongs. These songs were brought here by the first settlers and were sung at house parties and family reunions, at weddings and other celebrations, or simply to while away the hours at work. The tradition started dying out after the Second World War, but there are still people who remember their old songs. Sometimes the words were preserved in old hand-written “scribblers”, or notebooks, compiled by family members and handed down from generation to generation.