Malicorne (band)
Malicorne are a French folk and folk rock band formed in September 1973 by Gabriel Yacoub, Marie Yacoub, Hughes de Courson and Laurent Vercambre. They flourished in the 1970s, broke up three times in the 1980s but re-formed twice in the early 2010s and toured during 5 years from July 2012 until their very last show in August 2017, after what they definitely abandoned their long-lasting new album project and broke up.
History
1973–1977: The traditional years
and Marie Yacoub formed Malicorne on 5 September 1973. For two years, Gabriel had been a member of Alan Stivell's band, playing folk-rock based on Breton music. He sang and played acoustic guitar, banjo and dulcimer with Stivell, appearing on his 1972 À l'Olympia breakthrough album and his 1973 Chemins de Terre album, before leaving at the end of Summer 1973 to form his own band, intending to popularise French music the way Stivell had popularised Breton music. Since several of their albums are called simply Malicorne it had become the custom to refer to them by number, even though no number appears on the cover at all.Released in October 1974, Malicorne 1 consisted of the four founder members, that is the Yacoubs, Hughes de Courson and Laurent Vercambre. They use a combination of electric guitar, violin, dulcimer, bouzouki and vocals. The four musicians, between them, could play twelve instruments. Their first four albums consisted of mostly traditional French folk songs, with, per album, one or two songs written by Gabriel Yacoub, one or two instrumentals and a few music and lyrics borrowed from some Canadian versions of the songs and instrumentals. They occasionally sang group harmonies a cappella. On Malicorne 4, they were lastingly joined by a fifth member, Olivier Zdrzalik, on bass, percussion and vocals.
1978–1980: The experimental years
L'Extraordinaire Tour de France d'Adélard Rousseau, dit Nivernais la Clef des Cœurs, Compagnon Charpentier du Devoir was very much a concept album, concerning a guild craftsman's travels around France, with an implied spiritual exploration. It is perhaps the most exciting of their albums, with some gothic and prog-rock elements in the music. Like their next album Le Bestiaire, it consists mostly of songs by Gabriel, with a few by Zdrzalik and de Courson. The range of sounds of these albums is huge. Their appeal goes beyond the French-speaking world, and still gives them a dedicated following, but most of the albums are only sporadically in print. Some sections are clearly classical music, but electronic wizardry and bagpipes also appear. In 1978, Malicorne released their first compilation album Quintessence spanning their first four albums and including their non-album track "Martin".1981–1989: Decline and break-up
The size of the band grew to seven members, including at one point, Brian Gulland from the English group Gryphon. Their commercial success enticed them into pure pop. Balançoire En Feu was a disappointment. They disbanded in early 1982 at the end of the album supporting tour. In February 1986, his record company convinced Gabriel Yacoub to record a new album under the name Malicorne, thus reactivating the band including new members. Les Cathédrales de L'Industrie began with an folk-rock track. One of the other tracks, "Big Science 1-2-3" is in the style of Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson or Gary Numan. About a year after the album release, the band embarked on a 2-year extensive tour to support the new album, starting on 10 July 1987 at Les Francofolies de La Rochelle Festival, France and ending on 22 July 1989 in Saint-Gouéno, Brittany, France at the Festival des Tertres, France – a final show that would become the last Malicorne show for the twenty-one following years. Malicorne disbanded at the end of the tour.1989–2010: Break-up aftermath and solo careers
After the break-up, Malicorne released three other compilation albums: Légende , Vox and Marie de Malicorne, a compilation of Malicorne tracks featuring only those sung by Marie Yacoub. In 1990, Gabriel and Marie appeared as a duo in an event in London. All of Malicorne's songs were in French, apart from a few words of English on their final album. At the concert, they made some announcements in broken English. Gabriel continued to record as a solo artist. All his solo albums are available on CD but one, the best of compilation Tri.2010: Reunion show
Twenty-one years after their last show under the name Malicorne, the band reunited the classic line-up along with guest musicians and performed a one-off reunion concert on 10 July 2010 at Les Francofolies de La Rochelle Festival at the Grand Théâtre de la Coursive in La Rochelle. A CD and a DVD of the performance were released separately in March 2011.2011–2017: Rebirth
New band, tour, album and rename
In November 2011, 38 years after the release of their debut album Pierre de Grenoble, Gabriel Yacoub and Marie Yacoub announced the formation of a new band under the name Gabriel et Marie de Malicorne, including four other members: Yannick Hardouin on keyboards, acoustic bass guitar and backing vocals, and Gilles Chabenat on electro-acoustic hurdy-gurdy, David Pouradier Duteil on drums, percussions and backing vocals and newcomer Romain Personnat on diatonic accordion, harmonium and vocals.The new band also announced that they would embark in July 2012 on a concert tour entitled "Almanach Tour 2012-2013" and record a new album at the end of 2013.
Malicorne embarked on the Almanach Tour in July 2012 in Brittany, performing two shows there: on 8 July in Kergrist, Morbihan and on 24 July in Quimper, Finistère.
During the Almanach Tour, the band performed in France at many venues, especially during summer festivals. During the first 6 months, out of 8 dates, the band performed 5 dates in Brittany where Malicorne always enjoyed a great popularity. The tour continued beyond 2013, visiting the whole country and three foreign countries, Belgium in 2013, the Netherlands in 2014 and Switzerland in 2015.
On 20 September 2012 the six-member band had decided to become simply Malicorne, after the eponymous duo had realized that the new name "didn't work", that "in people's mind, this remained Malicorne".
Line-up changes
At a Malicorne concert on 24 May 2013 in Aubervilliers, a seventh member was on stage, appearing to be one of Gabriel Yacoub's long-time music partners: guitarist Nicolaïvan Mingot. Malicorne performed again as a 6-musician band at the following concert on 6 July 2013 at the Gooikoorts Festival in Belgium. At the next Malicorne show on 14 July 2013, Mingot was back on stage with the Malicorne. Since then, Mingot has permanently joined the band.On 14 July 2013, during the Château d'Ars Festival, Malicorne's founder member Laurent Vercambre joined the band on stage as a guest musician to perform a few tracks, first as a solo violinist and secondly within the nyckelharpas duo he had formed at the time with Eleonore Billy. This was the first time Laurent played again with the band since the one-off reunion show Malicorne performed three years earlier on 15 July 2010 in La Rochelle. Thereafter, Laurent supported Malicorne at their concert on 20 September 2014 at Le Trianon in Paris, France, their first major show in the capital city since their previous one twenty-six years ago.
In December 2014, Laurent Vercambre permanently returned to the band, replacing Romain Personnat. The new line-up gave its first show in January 2015 at the Théâtre des Feuillants in Dijon, Burgundy, France.
New material
On 24 June 2015, Malicorne confirmed that their new studio album was still in preparation, confiding "taking the time necessary to obtain an album of quality" and announcing "hoping anyway to release some time in October 2015" two discs : a 4-track EP « to set the tone of the album » and a vinyl record of a new track, "Les Cendres de Jeanne", a song written by Gabriel Yacoub about Joan of Arc. Finally, only the vinyl was released on 10 December 2015 under the name Jehanne, including two different versions: the A-side version entitled "Les Cendres de Jeanne" performed by Malicorne & the B-side version entitled "Ghjuvanna" performed by A Filetta, a Corsican band and Malicorne's long-time friends.Vercambre's departure
In mid September 2015 Laurent Vercambre left the band, after a spell of nine months, with plans for new musical projects. He was to announce his departure on stage, during what was to be his last show with the band, on 25 September 2015, in Coucy-le-Château, Picardy, as part of the Historica/Pagan Festival. The show was cancelled however, after the entire event was cancelled by its organisers. Malicorne once again became a sextet.On 18 December 2015, Malicorne performed its first show since Vercambre's departure, in Corbeil-Essonnes, Paris. This was only the band's 5th show in Île-de-France following the dates at Aubervilliers on 24 May 2013, Cachan on 14 March 2014, Paris on 20 September 2014 and La Verrière on 10 April 2015.
Malicorne performed only five shows in 2016, all of them occurring in the provinces. Their last 2016 show on, 21 October 2016 in Ploërmel, Morbihan, was their 37th since the beginning of the Almanach Tour in early July 2012 but also their first show in Brittany since the one on 7 December 2013 in Tréguier, Côtes-d'Armor.
Final show
Malicorne performed their very last show on 12 August 2017 at the Festival du chant de marin in Paimpol, Brittany. Concomitantly, the new album project was definitely abandoned.Touring
Once they had gained a reputation in France, Malicorne toured in French-speaking Canada. The album En Public, recorded live in Montreal. They toured over 800 venues in Europe, Canada and the United States.Members
Sources:Past members
Full members
- Gabriel Yacoub – 1973–1989, 1995, 2010, 2011–2017 – lead vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, épinette des Vosges, mandolin, mandoloncello, banjo
- Marie Sauvet – 1973–1987, 1995, 2010, 2011–2017 – lead vocals, dulcimer, bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy
- Hughes de Courson – 1973–1976, 1977–1978, 1981, 1995, 2010 – bass guitar, percussions, cromorne, vocals
- Laurent Vercambre – 1973–1976, 1977–1978, 1995, 2010, 2013, 2014–2015 – violin, viola, bouzouki, psaltery, harmonium, mandolin, vocals
- Max Picout – 1973–1974 – bass guitar
- Pierre Kerhervé – 1975–1976 – bass guitar
- Olivier Zdrzalik-Kowalski – 1976–1986, 2010 – bass guitar
- Claude Alvarez-Pereyre – 1976–1977 – violin, electric guitar
- René Werneer – 1976–1977 – violin
- Brian Gulland – 1979, 1979–1980 – bassoon, cromorne, flute, harpsichord, keyboards, saxophone, oboe, vocals
- Patrick Le Mercier – 1979–1982 – violin, electric guitar, Scottish bagpipes, gaita, lyra, cromorne, vocals
- Jean-Pierre Arnoux – 1979–1982, 1986–1989 – drums, percussions
- Dominique Regef – 1979–1980 – cello, rebec, hurdy-gurdy, sanza
- Félix Blanchard – 1982 – keyboards
- Michel Le Cam – 1984, 1986–1989 – violin, mandolin, accordion, vocals
- Gérard Lavigne – 1984 – bass guitar
- Jean-Marc Alexandre – 1984 – electric guitar
- Frank Gliksman – 1984 – drums
- Patrice Clémentin – 1986, 1987–1989 – synthesizers, sequencers, vocals
- Frédéric Mathet – 1987–1988 – bass guitar, clarinet, vocals
- Nikki Matheson – 1987–1989 – keyboards, tin whistles, vocals
- Yannick Hardouin – 1989, 2010, 2011–2017 – bass guitar
- Gilles Chabenat – 2010, 2011–2017 – hurdy-gurdy
- David Pouradier Duteil – 2010, 2011–2017 – drums, percussions
- Romain Personnat – 2011–2014 – diatonic accordion, harmonium, vocals
- Nicolaïvan Mingot – 2013–2017 – electric guitar
Guest studio musicians
- Dan Ar Braz – 1978 – electric guitar
- Michel Santangeli – 1978 – drums
- Bruno Menny – 1978 – orgue à voix
- Alain Roux – 1979 – harmonica
- Iván Lantos – 1981 – Bulgarian bagpipes, kaval flute
- Véronique Harvey – 1981 – backing vocals
- Jim Cuomo – 1981 – saxophones
- Bertrand Darin – 1981 – piano
- Michel Bourzeix– 1981 – xylophone
- Richard Galliano – 1981 – accordion, bandoneon
- Alan Kloatr – 1986 – uilleann pipes, tin whistle
- Olivier Daviau – 1986 – chabrette
- Jean-Michel Kajdan – 1986 – electric guitar
Guest live musicians
- André Proulx – violin
- Les Charbonniers de l'enfer – vocals
- Eléonore Billy – nyckelharpa
- Raphaël Thiery – cornemuse du Centre
Timeline
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Discography
Pre-Malicorne albums
- Pierre de Grenoble
Malicorne albums
Studio albums
- Malicorne 1
- Malicorne 2
- Almanach
- Malicorne 4
- L'Extraordinaire tour de France d'Adélard Rousseau
- Le Bestiaire
- Balançoire En Feu
- Les Cathédrales de L'Industrie
Live albums
- En Public
- Concert exceptionnel aux Francofolies de la Rochelle
Compilation albums
- Quintessence
- Légende
- Vox
- Marie de Malicorne
Singles
The Malicorne singles were mostly not-for-sale promotional ones :
- 1975: Martin / B: "Ronde " )
- 1975: J'ai vu le Loup, le Renard et la Belette / B: "Marions les Roses" )
- 1975: Marions les Roses " / B: "J'ai vu le Loup, le Renard et la Belette" )
- 1976: La Jambe Me Fait Mal " / B: "Quand Je Menai Mes Chevaux Boire" )
- 1976: Almanach / B: "Branle de la haie" )
- 1978: La Chica De Berro / B: "Quand Je Menais Mes Chevaux Boire"
- 1978: À Paris la grande Ville / B: "La danse des damnés"
- 1986: Dormeur " / B: "Dormeur " )
- 1986: Big Science " / B: "Sorcier" )
- 1996: Marions les Roses " / B: "Marions les Roses" )
- 2015: Jehanne / B: "Ghjuvanna" )