Gabriel Yacoub, co-founder of the French folk group Malicorne, died on Wednesday January 22, 2025 at the age of 72, AFP learned from his manager and Marie Sauvet, his ex-partner and co-founder of this popular group born in the 1970s, which specified that the musician had succumbed to a long illness at the Bourges hospital (Cher).
Folk and traditional songs
Gabriel Yacoub was, with Marie Sauvet (also known as Marie Yacoub), behind the creation of Malicorne in 1973: at the time when folk was on the rise and Bob Dylan was in every ears, the French group, initially composed of four musicians, had chosen to revisit the traditional repertoire in its own way, which it presented in the language of Molière.
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“Malicorne recreates the magic of the music of yesteryear, by combining modern technology and rare or traditional instruments from around the world, such as cromornes, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, harmoniums and mandoloncellos,” it is stated on Gabriel Yacoub’s official website. .
Just before the creation of the group, the couple had carried out a sort of trial balloon by publishing, in 1973, the experimental album Peter of Grenoble.
-Decades of success
Malicorne enjoyed success throughout the 1970s: he has to his credit around ten records between folk and progressive rock, the best known of them remaining their third studio album, Almanacreleased in 1976.
The 1980s were marked by separations and reformations with new musicians but, in July 2010, the Francofolies de La Rochelle succeeded in bringing Malicorne back on stage in its original configuration.
Still with Marie Sauvet, he launched in the 2010s Gabriel and Marie de Malicornethe opportunity to continue making music and concerts together.
A musical epic spanning over forty years
Gabriel Yacoub also led a solo career, started in parallel with the group: in 2001, his song The stabbed dove appears in the soundtrack of the hit documentary The Migratory Peopledirected by Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud and Michel Debats.
Our “Folk” file
It was on the stage of the Chant de Mar festival, in Paimpol (Côtes-d’Armor), in August 2017, that Malicorne said goodbye to the public and closed a musical epic spanning more than forty years. “His music will always remain,” wrote Marie Sauvet on Facebook, in a short message in tribute to her partner.
