Mano Solo

Mano Solo (24 April 1963 – 10 January 2010), born Emmanuel Cabut, was a French singer. He was born in Châlons-sur-Marne on 24 April 1963 to the illustrator Cabu and Isabelle Monin, co-founder of the ecology-related magazine, La Gueule ouverte.

From the age of 17, Mano Solo played guitar in a punk rock group, les Chihuahuas. He began singing his own compositions in the early nineties. He then sang regularly at the Tourtour theatre in Paris, alongside singers Marousse and P’tit Louis.

His first album, La Marmaille Nue, was released in 1993 and sold 100,000 copies in the first year. His second album, Les Années Sombres (“The Dark Years”), a somber album that also went gold in its first months was released in 1995. In 1996, he regrouped with part of the Chihuahuas for the album Frères Misère (Brothers in Misery). Its rhythms are closer to punk, and the texts are more topical than his solo albums. With little media attention, the album failed to meet immediate success.

The release of a new album: Je sais pas trop (“I don’t really know”) was in 1997. Recorded live and featuring, once again, original melodies and sounds, it was a Gold record in France. Two years later, Mano Solo recorded the double album Internationale Shalala, live at the Tourtour, a little theatre where he played regularly since the beginning of his music career. He sings and plays guitar on the album, accompanied only by another guitarist, Jean-Louis Solans. The songs come from earlier Solo albums, except for Shalala, a hymn of “inner revolution” that the artist sang together with his audience at the end of every concert, with a positive and dynamic message.