Paul Mauriat: Easy Listening Orchestra Maestro

Paul Mauriat (4 March 1925 – 3 November 2006) was a French orchestra leader and conductor of Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat, specializing in the easy listening genre. He is best known for his million-selling 1968 remake of André Popp’s “Love is Blue,” which topped the US charts for five weeks.

Early Life and Education

Mauriat was born in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. His father was a postal inspector who played classical piano and violin and gave him music lessons starting at age eight. Between ages three and four, Mauriat began playing piano. In 1935, at age 10, he enrolled in the Conservatoire in Marseille to study classical music, though by age 17 he had turned his attention to jazz and popular music.

His first job was as a postman, but in 1942, at age 17, he was hired as a band conductor. Throughout the 1940s, his dance band toured concert halls across Europe. Based in Marseille until 1958, he then moved to Paris and became musical director for French singers Charles Aznavour and Maurice Chevalier, arranging 135 songs for Aznavour including “La Bohème,” “La mamma,” and “Tu t’laisses aller.” He worked with Aznavour until the early 1960s, when Aznavour concentrated on his own touring and recording career.

Career and Achievements

Mauriat released his first EP in 1957 on the RGM label. One of his early songs, “Rendez-vous au Lavandou,” co-written with André Pascal, won the 1958 Coq d’or de la Chanson Française. Between 1959 and 1964, he recorded several albums on the Bel-Air label under various pseudonyms—Richard Audrey, Nico Papadopoulos, Eduardo Ruo, and Willy Twist—to reflect the international character of his work. He also composed music for French film soundtracks including “Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk” (1961), “Horace 62” (1962), and “Faites Sauter La Banque” (1964).

Using the pseudonym Del Roma, Mauriat co-wrote “Chariot” with Franck Pourcel, Jacques Plante, and Raymond Lefèvre. In the United States, Little Peggy March recorded it as “I Will Follow Him,” reaching number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1963. The song later appeared in the 1992 film “Sister Act” and was sampled by Eminem in “Guilty Conscience.”

Starting in 1965, Mauriat recorded under his own name with Philips Records, a label seeking competition with Franck Pourcel. Between 1967 and 1972, he wrote numerous songs with André Pascal for Mireille Mathieu, including “Mon Crédo,” which sold 1,335,000 copies. His late 1967 cover of “L’amour est bleu” (“Love Is Blue”) became a number 1 hit in 1968, spending five weeks at the top of the US charts. The song was the first instrumental to reach number 1 on the Billboard charts since the Tornados’ “Telstar” in 1962 and the only American number-one single recorded in France. “Love in Every Room”/”Même si tu revenais” and the “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang” theme also charted in the US. The success of “Love Is Blue” and the album “Blooming Hits” established him as an international recording star.

In 1969, Mauriat began his first world tour with his Grand Orchestra, visiting the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and other Latin American countries. During the 1970s and 1980s, he released albums paying homage to classical roots, including “Paul Mauriat joue Chopin” and “Classics in the Air” volumes 1, 2, and 3, featuring works by Chopin, Bach, and Pachelbel. His 1978 disco/funk album “Overseas Call,” created with arranger Gérard Gambus and recorded at the Power Station in New York, was later rediscovered by rare disco collectors. One track, “The Joy of You,” appeared in DJ Dimitri from Paris’s 2007 compilation “Cocktail Disco.”

Mauriat achieved phenomenal success in Japan starting in the late 1960s. He was the only international artist to play two sold-out shows in one day at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. In the early to mid-1980s, he appeared in Japanese coffee and wine television commercials. By 1996, he had sold over 15 million albums in Japan and performed over 1,000 shows across 25 Japanese tours. For several decades, his compositions served as musical tracks for Soviet television programmes and short films, including the 1977 animated feature “Polygon.”

Mauriat retired from performing in 1998, giving his final performance at the Sayonara Concert in Osaka, Japan, though his orchestra continued touring. His former lead pianist, Gilles Gambus, became the orchestra’s conductor in 2000 after working with Mauriat for more than 25 years. In 2005, classical French Horn instrumentalist Jean-Jacques Justafré conducted the orchestra during a tour of Japan and Korea.

Awards and Honors

Mauriat received the Grand Prix from the French recording industry and a MIDEM trophy. In 1997, he won the Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. “Love is Blue” was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America in March 1968. Both the single and the album “Blooming Hits” each sold over one million copies. A line of saxophones and trumpets manufactured in Taiwan are named for Paul Mauriat under the brand P. Mauriat.

Additional Resources

For more detailed information about Paul Mauriat’s life, recordings, and legacy, consult Wikipedia and other biographical archives. An authorised biography, “Paul Mauriat: une vie en bleu,” was published by Serge Elhaïk in 2002.