The seventh edition of the Gala Country Awards was held at Salle André Mathieu, in Laval, on Oct. 19, 2019, and it was the ideal time and place to take the pulse of the Québec country music scene in 2019. Is there a renaissance of the genre, with the increasing popularity of so-called “new country”? Is commercial radio more open to the genre nowadays? Is there a schism between the veterans and the upstarts in Québec? We asked Paul Daraîche (Show of the Year), Mack & Ro (Group of the Year), Annie Blanchard (Covers Album of the Year), and Matt Lang (Breakout Artist, Anglophone Album and Male Entertainer of the Year) for their takes on all of that.
Photo by Marie-Michèle Bouchard