Arthur H

French pianist and singer-songwriter Arthur Higelin (March 27, 1966), better known by his stage name Arthur H, emerged in the music scene in the late 80s through a series of live performances that earned him comparisons to smoke-voiced crooners like Tom Waits and Serge Gainsbourg. The son of singer Jacques Higelin (1940-2018), he spent some time traveling around the West Indies before settling in Boston to study music, where he stayed for 18 months. Upon his return to Paris, he formed a trio with bassist Brad Scott and drummer Paul Jothy, which made its debut in 1988 in an underground venue named The Old Grid. The concert went so well that Arthur H and company performed nightly at the club for a month. Combining his sonic experimentations with a traditional French style known as bal-musette, his eponymous studio debut saw the light in 1990 and spawned an international tour throughout Europe and Japan. He followed up with Bachibouzouk (1992), presented through a six-week residency at the Magic Mirrors circus that was documented on the live LP En Chair et En Os (1993). Arthur H continued to tour relentlessly and delivered the albums Trouble-Fête (1996), Pour Madame X (2000), and Négresse Blanche (2003) before reaching a major commercial milestone in his career with 2005’s duets album Adieu Tristesse. The album reached Number 16 on the French charts and was followed by L’Homme du Monde in 2008, which peaked at Number 14 and won Pop/Rock Album of the Year at the 2009 Victoires de la Musique awards. In the subsequent years, Arthur H explored the intersection between music and literature on L'Or Noir (2012), L'Or d'Éros (2014), and Les Souliers Rouges (2016), and scored his first Top 10 solo album with Amour Chien Fou in 2018. Three years after his father's death, he returned in 2021 with the album Mort Prématurée d’Un Chanteur Populaire Dans la Force de l’Âge, hitting Number 78 on the French Albums Chart.