Roch Voisine hasn’t performed in Ottawa-Gatineau for a while, but whenever he does, he’s amazed by the audience here.
“This is a good area for me,” said the 47-year-old New Brunswick native who plays the Centrepointe Theatre tomorrow.
“I do French concerts and English concerts, and get a mix of both crowds at both.”
Voisine is performing —in English only this time — from his latest album, Americana, which was released in Canada a month ago and topped the charts in Canada last week.
Americana features the American and Canadian folk rock and country classics that performers including Neil Young, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot made famous.
For the show, “we put our own spin on them,” said Voisine, “and added a few of my own tunes in there.”
When covering other artists’ songs, “you’ve got to respect the original tune and keep them the way they were,” he said. “I wrap them around my voice and take a few little liberties, but we try to do them as-is because they’re beautiful as they are.”
