Gilles Girard

Gilles Girard was born in Montreal on 16 February 1942. He was attracted to show business from childhood and was already singing at the age of ten. At 16 he made his first record, using the stage name Danny Boy. Friends and fans in the music world later knew him affectionately as Ti-Gilles.

In 1960, at the age of 18, Girard joined the four musicians of the Special Tones, a group that officially became Les Classels in 1964. With that change he went back to performing under his own name. The original line-up was Gilles Girard on vocals, Michel Caron and Jean-Clément Drouin on guitars, Pierre Therrien on bass and Serge Drouin on drums.

Les Classels stood out in two ways. Their look was entirely white: hair, suits and instruments. And while many groups of the period recorded French adaptations of English-language hits, their best known songs, among them Ton amour a changé ma vie, Avant de me dire adieu, Le sentier de neige, Tu le regretteras and Mon premier amour, were original productions. According to French Wikipedia, in 1964 the group went to court over the look and name adopted by another band, Les Hou-Lops, and won.

In 1965 Les Classels won the award for the most spectacular group at the Gala des Artistes, one of the major events of the Quebec music scene of the 1960s. They toured the whole province and sold more than a million records before saying goodbye in 1971. The musician Gilles Valiquette described them as pioneers of the yé-yé wave, and the music historian Sébastien Desrosiers of the Maison de la chanson et de la musique du Québec noted that their best known titles were original songs.

After the group split, Girard pursued a solo career for several years, then reformed the band in 1977 as Gilles Girard et les Super Classels. He remained a regular presence on television variety shows and on the nostalgia circuit. In 2016 he toured festivals with the musicians of the group Poker in a show called Souvenirs 60, which opened with a Beatles tribute before moving on to the Classels' hits, and he shared the stage with Michèle Richard in La tournée des idoles. He also appeared in Jukebox, a documentary by Guylaine Maroist and Éric Ruel about the record producer Denis Pantis. In 2024 he took part in the Radio-Canada series Zénith, where he represented the baby boomer generation, and in 2025, at 83, he was still giving concerts.

Girard was a father; his son Sam Girard announced his death. He was known among fellow performers for his warmth and good humour. The actress Danielle Ouimet, who first met him when she was a teenager watching rehearsals for television shows, described him as always cheerful, adorable and absolutely charming, and recalled him telling his bandmates before going on that they would have fun and give the audience the best they had.

Gilles Girard died on the afternoon of Sunday 18 October 2026, at the age of 84, surrounded by his family and the people who loved him. His son Sam Girard announced the death on Facebook, writing that it was with a heavy heart that the family announced the passing of their dear father. Radio-Canada reported that he died of severe pneumonia.

Tributes followed from across Quebec's music world. Michèle Richard said she was deeply saddened by the loss of her friend, whom she remembered as an authentic, gentle man, passionate about life and deeply in love with his profession. Sylvain Cossette recalled a show at which he had paid tribute to Girard and said he had been one of the great voices of Quebec. The author Pierre Huet wrote that Girard had a powerful voice recognisable a mile away, and that with his passing another legend of the Québec à gogo era was gone. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Les Classels belong to the golden age of Quebec yé-yé, alongside groups such as César et les Romains, Les Habits jaunes, Les Jaguars and Les Baronets. The group's insistence on original French-language songs set it apart from much of the scene, and its hits remained part of Quebec's popular memory for more than half a century. The historian Sébastien Desrosiers called Girard one of the most ardent defenders of the memory of the 1960s and one of its greatest symbols, a singer who kept the flame alive and whose vocal power remained remarkable even in old age.