Bretons: You had to go out in April All sailors are singers: a project combining both an audio album of cover songs by the sailor singer Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec and a biography. Containment obliges, is it postponed?
François Morel: We will have to wait a little, yes: the book will finally be released on October 14, the album two days later and the tour is scheduled for next January. Everything was ready for this project that we had led to three, with my faithful partner Antoine Sahler for musical arrangements, Gérard Mordillat (novelist and filmmaker, editor's note) as a storyteller and myself as a singer. The tour should have started in April in Brittany, to pay tribute to Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec, whose musical repertoire we are reinterpreting.
But did this Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec really exist?
It will exist since we will make it live! (Smile) I like to keep the mystery around this story. The story as I give it is as follows: one day, in a garage sale, I came across a songbook by an unknown singer by the name of Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec. The man was born in 1870 in Trigavou and was a fisherman on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. At the same time, he led a life of songwriter, telling his life, that of his fellows and of those who remained at the quay waiting for them. He died accidentally at sea in 1900 and his texts were forgotten, until I found them and reinterpreted them for the album All sailors are singers , while the biography returns to his short existence.
But then, why did you fall in love with this Breton?
Because I like the character, because he is Breton and I love this region, because getting in the footsteps of someone other than yourself allows you to put distance and say things on a your tone which is not necessarily usual. Departures at sea for long months are conducive to daydreaming ... With Le Guilvinec, I touch a certain naivety which also has its virtues. Thanks to him, I can assume to sing this repertory of the marine song which attracted me by personal taste.
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Find the rest of this interview in Bretons magazine n ° 166 of July 2020
This article is produced by Bretons magazine and hosted by 20 Minutes.
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