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 (live) album and his 1973 Chemins de Terre (studio) 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.

Released in October 1974, Malicorne 1 consisted of the four founder members, that is the Yacoubs, Hughes de Courson and Laurent Vercambre.

The size of the band grew to seven members, including at one point, Brian Gulland from the English group Gryphon.

Malicorne reunited a first time in Summer 1984 to tour North America in July–August 1984 and to perform a few shows in France in October 1984; and a second time in February 1986 when Gabriel Yacoub's record company convinced him to record a new album under the name Malicorne, thus reactivating the band including new members.

The new line-up recorded Les Cathédrales de L'Industrie (1986) which opens with the title track, a folk-rock song.

In November 2011, 38 years after the release of their debut album Pierre de Grenoble, Gabriel Yacoub and Marie Yacoub (now Marie Sauvet) 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 (two Gabriel Yacoub's long-time music partners, performing with him as a trio since 2005), David Pouradier Duteil on drums, percussions and backing vocals (already part of the line-up at the July 2010 one-off reunion concert in La Rochelle, France) and newcomer Romain Personnat on diatonic accordion, harmonium and (mostly backing) vocals.

[citation needed] 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.

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 (exactly) 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 (on 5 March 1988 at the Théâtre Déjazet).

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 (inaugural) Historica/Pagan Festival.

Malicorne performed their very last show on 12 August 2017 at the Festival du chant de marin in Paimpol, Brittany.