Born on October 8th: Tom Novembre was born in... November

The 1959 native of Nancy, France, loves nothing more than offbeat humor, with a hint of English second degree if you please. Right down to his stage name.

Jean-Thomas Couture, as he is known to the registry office, is the younger brother of Bertrand Couture (aka Charlélie), another brilliant unclassifiable of French chanson, a protean artist who even ran an art gallery in New York for some time. Both men undoubtedly owe their insatiable curiosity and their fierce yet peaceful determination to fight against the tide of mediocrity to their father, a professor of Fine Arts. In other words, they fell into the magic potion cauldron when they were kids! Their mother was a French teacher, but... in the USA. Which no doubt explains their passion for words, poetic alliteration and everyday stories, sometimes with a hint of the abracadabrique.

 With all due respect to him, I see him more as a storyteller or history teller with a passion for music than as an outstanding singer. Of course, this in no way detracts from his talent. On the contrary, it gives him a nonchalant side that's not without its piquancy. Revealed at the Printemps de Bourges festival, he released his first album “Version pour doublage” in 1982. In November, it should be noted. In the years that followed, he followed this up with “Toile cirée” (1983) and “L'insecte” (1985), delightful UFOs in which most of the songs can be deciphered like short films conjuring up images in the listener's head. In those days, his concerts (with a gasoline pump on stage in 1984!) were a blend of theatrical performance, humor and, of course, music.

Thereafter, without ever totally abandoning music (notably with the covers album “André...” in 2005), he unsurprisingly turned to the big screen, filming several times with Jean-Pierre Mocky (including the excellent “Agent trouble” in 1987) but also, in bulk, with Claude Lelouch, Alain Attal or Bernardo Bertolucci and a few dozen other directors. He rarely gets the lead role, but that's not the most important thing. On the stage, he has a few one-man shows to his credit, as well as a range of major roles: “Fausse note” with Christophe Malavoy in 2017 and “Marius et Fanny”, a jazz opera by Vladimir Cosma in 2019. Because in Tom Novembre's life, music is never far away...

(Stéphane Soupart - Trad.: MH - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Tom Novembre promoting his album “Toile cirée” in 1983 in Brussels, Belgium