Maurice El Médiouni was born in the Jewish quarter of Oran, Algeria on 18 October 1928, into a family of musicians.
His uncle was the celebrated Messaoud El Mediouni, "Saoud l'Oranais" who died at the Sobibor extermination camp.
[2][3][4] Following the Algerian War of Independence, he moved to Paris, France, where he worked as a tailor as well as occasionally backing Jewish singers, and then in 1967 to Marseilles where he opened a clothing factory and took a break from his musical career, which he resumed in the 1980s.
In his later years, he was based in France and Israel, and could be caught live-performing solo or with other Arab-French and Jewish-French artists, such as Mahmoud Fadl, the Klezmatics, as well as playing alongside musicians who had originally accompanied him nearly half a century earlier in Algeria and France.
[5] His memoir, From Oran to Marseille, edited by Max Reinhardt and translated by Jonathan Walton, was published by Repeater Books in 2017.