The Quebec singer and songwriter Jean-Pierre Ferland passed away at the age of 89, leaving behind a huge musical legacy.

Ferland was born and raised in the Plateau Mont-Royal area of Montreal, having written over 450 songs and released around 30 albums.

He started his career at the broadcasting office of Radio Canada, where he was a scheduler in the late 1950s. In his spare time, he wrote poetry and sang.

In 1961, Ferland won a singing competition for the first time on the television show Chansons sur Mesure. A year later, his song Feuilles de gui won the grand prize at the Gala International de la chanson in Brussels.

At that time, songwriters in Montreal were struggling to make their voices heard.

Ferland and some of his colleagues opened a club, Chez Bozo, on Crescent Street in 1959 where French and Quebec singers could get a big break.

In the early 1960s, like many singers and songwriters in Quebec, he moved to Paris, where he stayed for five years and wrote many successful songs.

In 1968, he wrote Je reviens chez nous, which earned him the Prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros.

Both the song and its author were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007, alongside TonVisage, Le Petit Roi, Un peu plus haut un peu plus loin, and his famous duet with Ginette Reno T'es mon amour. Ça, ma belle.

The song Je reviens chez nous brought Ferland back to Quebec, where he wrote much of what Jean created, and French singer Charlotte Gainsbourg covered one of the album's songs in 2009.

In 2018, Jean received the Polaris Heritage Award for artistic merit.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X, describing Ferland as a "giant" of francophone music.

Trudeau wrote: "He wrote and sang songs that will forever be part of Quebec culture. We will miss him dearly."

Quebec Premier François Legault described Ferland as "the greatest builder of Quebec French song," adding that he listened to Jean frequently.

During the 1980s, Ferland returned to his broadcasting roots, with Suli on Télé-Québec and L'autobus du showbusiness on Radio Canada, but he continued to release albums.

The artist was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1996 and a knight of the National Order of Quebec in 2003.

In 2006, while rehearsing for the final show at the Bell Centre, he suffered a minor stroke. However, Ferland completed his tour a few months later, which was the first of many farewell concerts he would perform for his audience.

He released a few more albums in the years that followed and became a coach on the French version of The Voice in 2013.

In 2015, he celebrated his eightieth birthday with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.