#129: Beautiful Second Hand Man by Ginette Reno

City: Toronto, ON
Radio Station: CHUM
Peak Month: November-December 1970
Peak Position in Toronto ~ #6
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #26
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Beautiful Second Hand Man”
Lyrics: “Beautiful Second Hand Man”

Ginette Raynault was born in 1946 in Montreal. She began singing in 1960 at the age of 14, and won the talent contest “Les Découvertes de Jean Simon” (Jean Simon’s Discoveries). With this success, three Montreal clubs – Café Caprice, le Café de l’Est and the Café Provincial – offered her a professional contract. Jean Simon suggested Ginette adopt the stage name Reno—a phonetic spelling of her real last name (as pronounced in Francophone). In 1962, Ginette Reno released her debut single “J’aime Guy”, a French version of the minor pop hit “Yessiree”, released earlier that year by American pop singer Linda Scott. The following year, Reno released “Roger” which was a hit on French-language pop stations across Quebec. The single was accompanied by a self-titled debut album in 1963. It included the track “Le Jour Viendra”, a French version of the Ruby and the Romantics number-one hit “Our Day Will Come”, and “Avec Toi” which was a French-language cover of Marcie Blaine’s “Bobby’s Girl”. The flip side, “Roger”, was a big hit in 1963.
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