Riffing on both the classic folk song and the French idiom "faire le Jacques" (“to play the clown”), Les Frères Jacques provided France with a much-needed post-WWII pick-me-up. Over their four-decade career, this quartet (only two of whom were brothers) combined chanson tradition with barbershop harmonies, jazzy piano, and costumed buffoonery. But Les Frères' suggestive storytelling also served as the connective tissue between the radio-play era and the '60s pop sophistication of Serge Gainsbourg (whom they'd salute with a loungey cover of “Le poinçonneur des lilas”).