François Morel revives the texts of a forgotten Breton poet sailor in “All sailors are singers”

We know him as an actor, director, humorist, essayist and radio columnist. But it is the singer François Morel who is on tour with this original show where the general public discovers a Breton poet unknown until then, Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec. Born in 1870 in Trigavou, near Saint-Malo, youngest of a large family, fisherman on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Yves-Marie disappeared at sea at the age of thirty, at the very beginning of the 20th century.

It took the hand of chance (or that of fate who knows?) so that during a garage sale in Saint-Lunaire (Ille-et-Vilaine), François Morel leafed through The Cancalaise, a brochure dating from 1894, in which twelve songs by Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec were reproduced, illustrated by the author. Songs that talk about life at sea and on land and upset François Morel: “He is a poet who sang the lives of sailors” explains the actor.

They are concentrates of life; there are departures, reunions, nine-month sea voyages… A painful life where one needs to sing to give oneself courage.

The texts being incomplete, François Morel decided to restore them, to imagine words and notes where there were none left, helped in this by his friend, the musician Antoine Salher and by the novelist Gérard Mordillat.

On stage, François Morel is not alone: ​​Antoine Sahler, Amos Mah and Muriel Gastebois accompanies him, one on piano, trumpet and accordion, the other on guitar and cello and the last to percussion. He also shares interpretation with Gérard Mordillat and Romain Lemire.

This show also gave rise to a book, All the sailors in the world, Life and death of Yves-Marie le Guilvinec (Ed. Calmann-Lévy), signed François Morel, Gérard Mordillat and Antoine Sahler. This biography of Yves-Marie Le Guilvinec is completed by the full text of his songs as well as several moving letters to his mother and a study on his mort signed Dr Patrick Pelloux, as well as portraits by Ernest Pignon-Ernest.

This is not the first time that François Morel has pushed the song. This part of his (protean) career officially began in 2006, with Private collection, directed by Jean-Michel Ribes. Since adolescence, François Morel wrote songs but it was a meeting with the French composer Reinhardt Wagner, which will push him to pass the course. The latter will compose and interpret the music of his first texts.

François Morel also sings “the others”: Brassens (with Yolande Moreau in particular), Brel, Trenet and even Dalida. His tour All sailors are singers will take him to Paris from May 17 to July 3 on the stage of the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris. He will then be on the Francofolies stage on July 16.

All the sailors are singers on May 6 at the Eldorado Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron at 8:30 p.m. then on May 14 at Epinay-sous-Sénart (91)