Jeannie Arsenault, longtime hillbilly night performer and organizer, dies at 81

Jeannie Arsenault, an organizer and performer of Hillbilly Night, has died.

Montreal’s bluegrass country music community has lost a giant. Jeannie Arsenault was of small stature and huge talent.

For almost 60 years, every Monday night at The Wheel Club in N.D.G. has been Hillbilly Night.

Jeannie Arsenault was an organizer and performer.

Craig Morrison is an Ethnomusicologist and musician who shared the stage many times with Arsenault.

“She just made everybody feel welcome every single time she was there. So the whole community was founded on the premise of Bob Fuller saving country music and the goodwill and love that people felt from Jeannie Arsenault. So, in other words, he was the father and she was the mother. So now we all feel like we’re orphans.”

It began in 1966 at The Blue Angel Club in downtown Montreal with The Oldtime Country Music Club of Canada, founded by Bob Fuller.

Arsenault had an eye for talent and invited a young teenager onstage with his banjo.

Chris Quinn says he wasn’t old enough to drive to the venue, but Arsenault treated him like a bandmate and gave him stage time.

“That’s happening every week, that becomes a staple in the community and in the world, because people came to that place knowing that it would be there.”

“And that’s important for young musicians and people who want to share this music and learn about this music,” said Quinn, who still plays and shares his love of bluegrass banjo music.

A kind of roots music that could have faded into obscurity in this city if it weren’t for people like Arsenault.

Bassist Blake Eaton played with Arsenault for many years.

“She could harmonize with anybody. She knew all the songs, and she wouldn’t hold back on you. Like she had her way of making us better, holding us to a higher standard,” Eaton said.

Morrison added, “She had a couple of signature songs. One was “I’m little and I’m loud,” which she would belt out at the top of her lungs!”

Arsenault’s friend and stage-mate Terry Jo Rodriguez uses that lyric in a song he wrote the moment he heard Arsenault had died.

He had visited her in palliative care the day before and played banjo for her.

“She was asleep and woke up when she heard the music…pawing towards me and the banjo, saying that ‘I can hear you,’" Rodriguez said.

Eaton said, “We’re going to miss her so much. But at the same time, her spirit is so strong that it’s just going to live forever. I mean, whenever you go into the wheel club, you’re going to hillbilly night, I’m sure, for all of time. Like we’re going to feel Jeannie’s presence.”

Arsenault died at 81 on Monday night, the exact time she would have wanted to be onstage.