# Help with figuring Mme St. Onge vocal performance



## Haabrann (Mar 30, 2019)

Lately, I've taken an interest in ''outsider'' visual art, and music. This is a fascinating world, I must say. In exploring ''outsider'' music, I've come across a Canadian french woman, who did a recording by the name of Mme St. Onge. As I understand it, this is a very common french Canadian surname, basically like ''Smith'' in the UK. The album is called ''Les 10 Plus Grands Succes De Mme St. Onge'', and it seems to be a one-off, from the late sixties.

Virtually zero is known about both the artist and the recording. It is mostly popular tunes, done with a high spirit, which is quite infectious, I must say. I love it.

But the vocal performance has me kinda bewildered. Is it some kind of hoax, an elaborate joke, trying to pass as ''outsider''? I have some singing background. Nothing fancy I hasten to add, just going to an artsy high school with an emphasis on arts and performance, and then leaving that path when going to college. From a popular music perpective, Mme Onge seems quite a capable singer in her mid register. I guess she's a natural alto. In the higher register, she's highly idiosyncratic, haha. Sometimes falsetto, sometimes not. But the more I listen to the whole album, the more I'm wondering, and the more impressed I am, despite the wilder parts. The basic technique seems decently capable to me.

Is she a capable ''popular'' style performer with perhaps some training? I'd guess an actually classically trained performer would have real difficulty passing as a ''natural''. Is she a completely idiosyncratic, self-thaught ''outsider'' artist? Is the record a joke? A Genuine eccentric?

I'd like to hear the judgement of better ears than me. In any case, I absolutely love this record!

Here's a youtube link lots of tunes, almost the whole album:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mme+St.+Onge+full+album


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## Haabrann (Mar 30, 2019)

A few examples. One one hand she seems completely in control, doing a deliberate joke. On the other, she's got that oblivious _otherness_ I associate with ''genuine'', idiosyncratic, self-taught outsider artists (don't ask me for a definition!).











Rumours range from that it is a deliberate parody performed by a skilled, perhaps popular style, vocalist doing a parody of the contemporary U.S Mrs Miller - to a one-off recording from a genuine eccentric recluse. Zero information of actual substance can be found through the internet.

The U.S Mrs Miller, for comparison:


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