Gabriel Yacoub

Gabriel Yacoub was among the spearheads from the folk revival that swept through France. The founder and head of important French trad rock-band Malicorne through the 1970s and early ’80s, Yacoub provides continuing to explore the entire spectral range of French music being a soloist. Based on Vanity Good, Yacoub’s “tone of voice is certainly liquid and prepared, his guitar function brilliant: wealthy contrapuntal lines and traditional technique which, sounded on metal strings, provides his device the fullness of the harpsichord.” Originally inspired with the music of American vocalist/songwriters, specifically Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, Yacoub was presented to traditional French music as back-up guitarist and vocalist for innovative Breton harp participant Alan Stivell. Acquiring the lessons that he discovered from Stivell, he produced Malicorne in 1973 so that they can provide traditional music as much as contemporary standards. Among the first world music groupings, Malicorne combined Traditional western instruments, such as for example guitar and electrical bass, with traditional musical instruments, including krumhorns, bagpipes, and hurdy-gurdies. Jointly for ten years, Yacoub and Malicorne documented three albums that attained gold record position and received a esteemed silver prix de L’Academie du Disque Francais. After documenting a single record, Trad. Arr., offering acoustic renditions of traditional French music in 1978, Yacoub started writing original music. Breaking from Malicorne, he embarked by himself musical trip. Although he veered towards electrical folk-rock along with his 1986 record, Elementary Degree of Beliefs, documented with Hungarian composer Ivan Lantos and New York-born vocalist/keyboardist Nikki Matheson, he came back to his acoustic root base with the single record Bel in 1990. Yacoub provides continued to create his electric guitar playing and performing to a number of forms. In 1994 he documented Quatre with accompaniment from a 40-piece orchestra along with a vocal choir. Since 1998, Yacoub spent some time working with fiddler Nathalie Riviere and bassist Yannick Hardouin.