Paul Mauriat

Paul Julien André Mauriat (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French: or ; 4 March 1925 – 3 November 2006) was a French orchestra leader, conductor of Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat, who specialized in the easy listening genre. He is best known in the United States for his million-selling remake of André Popp's "Love is Blue", which was number 1 for 5 weeks in 1968. Other recordings for which he is known include "El Bimbo", "Toccata", "Love in Every Room/Même si tu revenais", and "Penelope". He (using the pseudonym Del Roma) co-wrote the song "Chariot" (also known as "I Will Follow Him") with Franck Pourcel (using the pseudonym J.W. Stole).

Mauriat was born in 1925 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France where he spent his childhood years. His father was a postal inspector who loved to play classical piano and violin. Mauriat began playing the piano between the ages of three and four, and his father gave him music lessons when he was eight. In 1935, at the age of 10, he enrolled in the Conservatoire in Marseille to study classical music, but by the time he was 17, he had fallen in love with jazz and popular music.

Mauriat had his first job as a postman, but in 1942 when he was 17, he was hired as a band conductor. His dance band toured concert halls throughout Europe throughout the 1940s. He was based in Marseilles until 1958 when he moved to Paris. Mauriat became the musical director for at least two well-known French singers, Charles Aznavour and Maurice Chevalier, touring with both of them. He arranged 135 songs by Aznavour, including "La Bohème", "La mamma", and "Tu t'laisses aller", and worked with Aznavour until he concentrated on his own touring and recording career in the 1960s.

In 1957, Mauriat released his first EP, Paul Mauriat, a four-track RGM release. One of his first songs, Rendez-vous au Lavandou, co-written with André Pascal, was awarded the 1958 Coq d'or de la Chanson Française.

Between 1959 and 1964, Mauriat recorded several albums on the Bel-Air record label under the name Paul Mauriat et Son Orchestre, as well as using the various pseudonyms of Richard Audrey, Nico Papadopoulos, Eduardo Ruo, and Willy Twist, to better reflect the international flavour of his recordings. During this period, Mauriat also released several recordings with Les Satellites, where he creatively arranged vocal backing harmony for such albums as Slow Rock and Twist (1961), A Malypense (1962), and Les Satellites Chantent Noël (1964).

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.