Series

This series
documents the central role played by music in Hélène Baillargeon-Côté's career,
first as a folk singer, and then as an actress in the title role of "Chez
Hélène," a TV show produced and broadcast by CBC from 1959 to 1973. The
series is made up of three collections of sheet music and lyrics published from
1960 to 1969.

The first
collection, entitled Vive la Canadienne (Éditions du Jour, 1963), is a
selection of "77 wonderful songs from French Canada" taken from
Baillargeon-Côté's repertoire, including well-known pieces like "À la
Claire fontaine," "Partons la mer est belle," "Alouette,
gentille alouette" and "Ah! Si mon moine voulait danser." The
preface was written by Marius Barbeau, a folklorist at the National Museum of
Canada in Ottawa (in 1969, its anthropology division became the National Museum
of Man, which is now called the Canadian Museum of History). The book is divided
into a dozen or so sections (for example, songs about childhood, love, jobs,
priests, rowing, dancing), including one devoted to "songs about marital
woes" that offer a light-hearted look at the suffering of young people
trapped in bad marriages. It includes songs from many regions in Quebec
(Beauce, Gaspé Peninsula, Lower St. Lawrence, Mauricie, Lanaudière, Outaouais,
Charlevoix, Montérégie, Montreal, Île Jésus, Kahnawake, Isle-aux-Coudres,
Portneuf, Témiscouata, Île d'Orléans, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec City,
Lotbinière). There are also several from Ontario (Sudbury, Werner, Lafontaine),
Prince Edward Island and Acadian regions. Apart from a few words in English in
"I went to the market" and the Iroquois lullaby "Ho! Ho!
Watanay," all the songs in the collection are in French. The book
was autographed by Hélène Baillargeon-Côté in July 1990.

Chantez,
les petits (Gordon
V. Thompson, 1960) is a collection of 57 short French songs, written and
composed by Joseph Beaulieu. The book is designed as a tool to be used by
English-speaking students learning French. The cover has a sticker with the
name of Hélène Baillargeon-Côté and the stamp of the CBC Music Library,
suggesting that songs in it may have been used on the TV show "Chez
Hélène." It also contains several annotations, including marks pointing to
certain titles in the table of contents. A photocopy of the song “Les petits oiseaux,” taken from Chansons,
rondes et jeux d’autrefois et de toujours (Éditions Bourrelier), is taped
to the inside front cover.

The last
volume is a collection of songs used in the TV show "Chez Hélène." It
contains traditional songs (e.g., "Frère Jacques," "Savez-vous
planter des choux," "Fais dodo," "Il était un petit
navire") along with songs written or composed by Francine Cockenpot,
Hélène Baillargeon-Côté and Joseph Beaulieu, some of which were probably
created especially for the show (e.g., "Susie, la souris" and
"Susie est blottie").