Of all the improbable artists to hit #1 on the US pop chart — and there have been quite a few — a Belgian nun might just stand as the most improbable of all.
Let’s go back to 1961. The record executives at the Brussels branch of the Philips label were seasoned professionals. If you spend long enough in the business you’ll have seen it all, shedding your wide-eyed wonder and donning an air of jaded ennui. But the staff found themselves somewhat nonplussed when two nuns drove up in a second-hand Citroen and walked through the front doors with a request.
The elder of the two stated that her companion, Sister Luc-Gabrielle, wrote and played songs which the young novitiates at the abbey greatly enjoyed. They hoped to record a few of the songs and offered to pay Philips to press a couple hundred records to give away as gifts. The executives begged off, blaming the busy Christmas season rush, but the nuns would not be deterred. Three months later, they called and asked if now was a better time.
Philips agreed to a quick session, and Sister Luc-Gabrielle returned with her guitar and four other nuns in tow as background singers. When the executives heard the songs, they quickly decided that this enterprise shouldn’t be a small, private pressing, but rather a full-scale album release to all of Europe.
As for the US, Philips had no expectation of commercial success — especially since the songs were in French — but they went ahead and released the record there under the name The Singing Nun.
As expected, nothing happened.
But then a music publisher decided he liked one song in particular and chose to release it as a single. It was a sprightly tune called “Dominique,” which related the exploits of Saint Dominic — the founder of the Dominican order to which Sister Luc-Gabrielle belonged — and extolled his virtues.
It turned out that the American public didn’t care a bit about the non-English lyrics, sending both the single and the accompanying album to #1 in November of 1963 — surprisingly, the first time ever that a single and an album by the same artist had topped the charts simultaneously.
In January of 1964, Sister Luc-Gabrielle played “Dominique” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Four weeks later, The Beatles made their debut appearance on the same show — a really big show — and the world was never the same.
In 1966, Debbie Reynolds starred in a movie which told the tale of the improbable rise of The Singing Nun. Despite the renewed attention — or maybe because of it — Sister Luc-Gabrielle left the convent shortly afterwards. She attempted to maintain her music career, but times had changed. “Dominique” became a quaint and quirky artifact of a different era. But for a brief time, a simple nun from Belgium stood on top of the world.
Alors faites passer le mot….. avec The Singing Nun.
