Paul Mauriat
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Paul Mauriat (born March 4, 1925) in Marseille, France is a French orchestra leader, specializing in light music. He is best known for his masterpiece 1968 "L'Amour est bleu" ("Love is Blue"), written by André Popp and originally recorded by Vicky Leandros,which was a number one hit in the United States.
Mauriat grew up in Paris and began leading his own band during the Second World War. In the 1950s he became musical director to at least two well-known French singers, Charles Aznavour and Maurice Chevalier, touring with them respectively.
In 1957, Mauriat released his first EP "Paul Mauriat", a four track RGM release. Between 1959-1964 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 Noel" (1964).
Mauriat composed the music for several French soundtracks (also released on Bel-Air) including "Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk" (1961), "Horace 62" (1962) and "Faits Sauter La Banque" (1964).
He wrote his first song with André Pascal. In 1958 they were prizewinners in the 'Coq d'or De La Chanson Francaise' with 'Rendez-vous au Lavendou'. Using the pseudonym of Del Roma, Mauriat was to have his first international hit with "Chariot" which he wrote in collaboration with friends Franck Pourcel (co-composer), Jacques Plante (French lyrics) and Raymond Lefevre (orchestrator). In the USA the song was recorded as 'I will Follow Him' by Little Peggy March, a fifteen years old singer, became number 1 in the Billboard charts all categories for 3 weeks, and in 1992 the song became the main theme for Sister Act 1 and 2, with Whoopi Goldberg. More recently, Eminem included some bars in his song Guilty Conscience.
Between 1967 and 1972 he wrote a lot of songs for Mireille Mathieu; Mon Credo (1 335 000 copies sold), Viens dans ma rue, La premiere etoile, geant to name but a few, and contributed 130 song arrangements for Charles Aznavour.
In 1965 Mauriat established "Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat" and released hundreds of recordings and compilations through the Philips label for the next 28 years. In 1994 he signed with Japanese record company Pony Canyon, where he re-recorded some of his greatest hits and wrote new compositions. Mauriat recorded many of these albums in both Paris and London, utilising several English classical musicians in these recordings.
Many of Mauriat's recordings are recompositions of other composers' songs and music. Mauriat relies heavily on strings and synthesiser to create interesting music. The arrangements are usually very bright and busy with sensible use of the percussive section to deliver a grand style of performance. In his 70s and 80s live concerts, Mauriat often used singers to provide backing for numbers such as "Penelope", "Love is Blue" and the "World Melody" section he arranged for his 1980 and 1982 concerts. Mauriat is compared favourably with Franck Pourcel, and at times their style is hard to pick from each other. Mauriat regarded Pourcel as his mentor in the 1950s, and as a major musical & personal influence who inspired him to record with important singers of the 1960s, as well as in the creation of his own orchestra.
Mauriat gave his final performance in 1998 in Osaka, Japan. But his orchestra keeps touring around the world and has twice traveled to China. Among his best known recordings are "L'amour est bleu", "El Bimbo", "Toccata" and "Penelope".
In 2002 writer and commentator, Serge Elhaik released an official authorised biography "Une vie en bleu" of Mauriat's life, written in French. This biography contains valuable information on Paul's recording discography, and has many pages of photos of Mauriat and his fellow musicians and French song writers, such as André Pascal [link].
Mauriat's former lead pianist Gilles Gambus[link] became the orchestra's conductor in 1999 and led successful tours of Japan, China, and Russia. Gilles Gambus[link] has been working and creating with Paul mauriat for more than 25 years. In 2005, classical French Horn instrumentalist, Jean-Jacques Justafre assumed conductorship of the orchestra, and lead successful tours of Japan and Korea in late 2005.
Discography (released as Paul Mauriat)
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External links
- [Paul Mauriat Official Fan Club]
- [Gilles Gambus Fan club]
- [Peter's Paul Mauriat Page]
- [Val Productions (Paul Mauriat's Management)]
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