France Joli and Nancy Martinez

[LuisMa]

I was doing some research on French-Canadian female singers who had hits on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart before Celine Dion and found two of them.

 

I remember listening to American Top 40 in 1993, and Shadoe Stevens mentioned that "Love Can Move Mountains" by Celine had been the first number one dance hit by a French-Canadian woman since France Joli's disco hit "Come To Me" back in 1979. On the Hot 100, "Come To Me" was a hit, reaching number 15:

 

 

Then, there's this great freestyle hit by Nancy Martinez called "For Tonight", which was stuck at number 32 for three weeks in late 1986. I remember I was 12 and really dug this song. At the time, because of the artist's last name, I thought she was of Latin descent. Last year as I was cleaning some records I found her album, so I researched and found out she, like Joli and Celine, is also French-Canadian:

 

 

Also, in a recent interview I listened to, Nancy Martinez revealed she worked as a background singer for Celine and that she had worked a lot with another Celine collaborator, Aldo Nova.

Edited November 15, 2012 at 08:34 PM by LuisMa