Réginald Charles Gagnon (7 January 1949 – 29 May 2024), known professionally as Cayouche, was a Canadian singer and songwriter of Acadian descent. Born in Moncton, he is credited with creating Acadian Frenchcountry music.
Early life
Réginald Charles Gagnon was born in Moncton, New Brunswick on 7 January 1949.[1][2] When he was 13 years old, Gagnon moved with his mother to the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts.[3] At the age of 19, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served in the Vietnam War, though he never saw combat.[4][5] Following his time in the US military, Gagnon returned to Leominster, Massachusetts, where he married and had two sons: Joshua Paul (born 1972) and Jason Charles (born 1973). In 1979, Gagnon returned to Canada with only his backpack and a guitar, which became the first step in his country-folk music career.
Career
Gagnon's performance moniker Cayouche stems from the US, where he says that people would tell him "You're not Acadian, you're Acayouche." "Acayouche" later became "Cayouche."
Even before the release of his first album, a Radio-Canada team had noticed that Cayouche was already popular in the Acadian Peninsula and even after the passing of 25 years, most people in the Acadian Peninsula know of Cayouche.[2] His first album, Un Vieux Hippy, released in 1994, sold more than 15,000 copies in a fairly small market, and songs such as "La chaîne de mon Tracteur", "Export A", and "L'alcool au volant" attained relative popularity.[6]
Cayouche maintained constant popularity throughout Canada and Europe and remains among the few popular Acadian artists in history to have sold over 100,000 albums.[7]
Among his biggest hits are "Export A", "La chaine de mon tracteur", "L’alcool au volant", "Fume Fume", "C’est ça mon Acadie", and "La reine du bingo". Gagnon, who later came to live in Maisonnette on the Acadian Peninsula, was the subject of the documentary film Cayouche: Le Temps d'une bière (English: Cayouche: Time for a beer) by Maurice André Aubin in 2009.[8]
Personal life and death
Gagnon motorcycled as a hobby. One of his songs, "L'Alcool au volant" (Drinking and driving), was created to warn others of drunk driving; in 2008, Gagnon was stopped by a Codiac RCMP officer and arrested and shortly released afterwards.[9] The following year, he received charges of impaired driving and driving with blood alcohol content over the legal limit, receiving a $2,000 fine for the incident.[10]
Gagnon died from cancer in Maisonnette, on 29 May 2024, at the age of 75.[11][12]
