A l'Olympia and Zoom on Galaxie Folk/Roots Channel

Hello Alan and all,
I am the producer/programmer of the Galaxie Folk/Roots Channel — a digital music service broadcast nationally in Canada, associated with the CBC.
This January and February, I have had the honour of paying special tribute to Alan — partially repaying, I hope, the significant musical debt I owe him.
The excerpt, below, from my monthly newsletter explains all.
Best wishes,
Roch Parisien
Galaxie Folk/Roots
roch@rocon.ca

Galaxie Folk/Roots tribute to Alan Stivell
Regular readers of these Galaxie Folk/Roots reports may recall previous bouts of nostalgia for the early-to-mid 70s days of progressive FM radio where many an impressionable young music fan was first exposed, over commercial airwaves, to exotic fusions of progressive rock, folk, blues, and pop, all blended by independent announcers who actually programmed their own playlists (in my case, this was via Montreal’s brilliant CHOM-FM, « bootlegged » to hometown Ottawa by running a wire from the TV cable connection to the stereo receiver!).

This provided our first mind-expanding exposure to the music of Breton/Celtic harpist Alan Stivell, the key catalyst in reviving the music of Brittany (a former independent Celtic kingdom and duchy long since incorporated into northwest France). It is said that Stivell’s legendary 1972 concert at the Olympia in Paris launched a thousand performers and bands, leading the way to a Breton cultural revolution (musical followers included Kornog and Tri Yann). Accompanied by an electric band (which included two guitarists who went on to be influential in their own right, Gabriel Yacoub and Dan Ar Bras), the resulting recording — A l’Olympia: En Direct Live — was a CHOM folk-rock cornerstone at the time, along with releases by Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle and Garoloup (the later being the first Canadian band of note to give the Fairport/Stivell electric treatment to traditional French-Canadian folk songs).

Although the legendary session was released on CD in 2000 in Europe under the title Olympia Concert, it remains a rare beast to find. Thanks to « friend of the show » Tom Coxworth, producer and host of Folk Routes at Alberta’s mighty CKUA Radio Network, Galaxie Folk/Roots is now blessed with a copy and has been happily spinning a broad selection of tracks since the New Year. Stivell remains a vital artist to this day, and to celebrate the arrival of the Olympia session, I’ve also brought to the forefront several selections from excellent two-disc career retrospective Zoom: 70-95, making January and February very much a Stivell tribute on the Channel. Enjoy the exotic beauty of the Breton language and this fabulous music, and big thanks to Tom!

Reminder to artists and record labels: Every month, Galaxie Folk/Roots charts in high rotation a select artist compilation (or “various artists” album) and/or a reissued archival release of note. Have you done a killer job on an artist compilation, box set, or catalogue remaster/reissue? Make you sure you send these to Galaxie Folk/Roots, along with your new releases, for feature-of-the-month consideration.

The Folk/Roots Channel is produced for the Galaxie Network of the CBC by Rocon Communications.
Please send submissions for broadcast consideration to:

For more information about the Galaxie Network,
please visit the website at:
www.galaxie.ca