In Quebec there existed a parallel North American teenage universe in which everything was in French. French-language top 40 radio stations, formatted to sound like their English counterparts, played Francophone hits alongside covers of whatever was hot in the States and England. Bands modeled on the Dave Clark Five, and girl singers wearing the latest
Supremes-approved fashions, stars in Quebec but unknown elsewhere, appeared on CBC French TV’s La jeunesse d’aujourd-hui ("The Youth Of Today"), a Saturday night mix of Bandstand, Shindig, and Top Of The Pops.
From among them emerged an unlikely, somewhat mismatched, pairing: a Quebeçois Freddie Cannon with Rick Nelson’s youthful charisma, and a girl from Mississippi who moved to Montreal, who later became a blues singer, Tony Roman and Nanette Workman.
Tony and Nanette
If three duets are an indicator, Tony Roman and Nanette Workman were promoted as the French-Canadian Sonny and Cher. Their discography includes Petites choses ("Little Things"), Et maintenant ("What Now My Love") and Petite homme ("Little Man").
Tony Roman had already charted in Quebec with Do wha diddy and Hanky Panky (some pop lyrics being so universal that they don’t need translating). In the States, he met Nanette and offered to get her a record deal. He started Canusa Records to give other Francophone bands a home, and also because every label he tried had found Nanette’s Mississippi-accented French unacceptable.
In 1975, Nanette Workman covered Labelle’s "Lady Marmalade" in French, but later returned to English and became a blues-rock singer in the style of Janis Joplin. She’s still on the scene, playing club dates in Montreal, and summer blues festivals throughout North America.