French singer-songwriter and visual artist Gabriel Yacoub was born in Paris on February 4, 1952. The son of a Lebanese father and a French mother, he cut his teeth accompanying Breton musician Alan Stivell before releasing the experimental album Pierre de Grenoble with fellow musician and future wife Marie Sauvet in 1973. The duo continued showcasing their undeniable musical chemistry on their next project, the folk-rock act Malicorne, which released a series of groundbreaking albums that went on to attain cult status in the French-speaking world. In 1978, at the peak of Malicorne's experimental phase, Gabriel Yacoub issued his solo album Trad. Arr., followed by the experimental sounds of Elementary Level of Faith (1986) almost a decade later. During Malicorne's absence in the 90s, he recorded and released the solo LPs BEL (1990), Quatre (1994), Babel (1997), and Yacoub (2001), as well as the compilation Tri in 1999. The Simple Things We Said, a collection of English versions of his earlier work aimed at the US market, appeared in 2002. In the following years, he founded the label Le Roseau and delivered his seventh full-length, De la Nature des Choses, in 2008, and toured extensively with a renewed Malicorne lineup until its definitive disbandment in 2017. On January 22, 2025, his wife announced the death of Gabriel Yacoub at 72.
