20 Facts About Paul Mauriat

Paul Mauriat is best known in the United States for his million-selling remake of Andre Popp's "Love is Blue", which was number 1 for 5 weeks in 1968.

Paul Mauriat's father was a postal inspector who loved to play classical piano and violin.

Paul Mauriat began playing the piano between the ages of three and four, and his father gave him music lessons when he was eight.

Paul Mauriat had his first job as a postman, but in 1942 when he was 17, he was hired as a band conductor.

Paul Mauriat was based in Marseilles until 1958 when he moved to Paris.

Paul Mauriat became the musical director for at least two well-known French singers, Charles Aznavour and Maurice Chevalier, touring with both of them.

Paul Mauriat composed the music for several French movie soundtracks, including Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk, Horace 62, and Faites Sauter La Banque.

Paul Mauriat started recording under his own name with Philips Records in 1965 as the label was interested in someone who could compete with Franck Pourcel, who was the dominant figure at that time.

In 1969, Paul Mauriat started his first world tour with his Grand Orchestra, visiting countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and other Latin American countries.

Paul Mauriat enjoyed particularly phenomenal success in Japan starting in the late 1960s.

Paul Mauriat is the only international artist who ever played two sold-out shows in one day at the famous arena Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.

Paul Mauriat had sold over 15 million albums in Japan and performed over 1,000 shows in 25 Japanese tours by 1996.

For several decades, some of Paul Mauriat's compositions served as musical tracks for Soviet television programmes and short movies, such as the 1977 animated Polygon, "In the world of animals" and "Kinopanorama", among others.

Paul Mauriat gave his final performance in the Sayonara Concert, recorded live in Osaka, Japan, but his orchestra continued to tour around the world before his death in 2006.

On 3 November 2006, Paul Mauriat died in Perpignan, Pyrenees-Orientales, France, at the age of 81.

Relative to his peers, Paul Mauriat has one of the largest recording catalogues, featuring more than 1,000 titles just from his PolyGram era.

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.

Paul Mauriat recorded many of these albums in both Paris and London, utilising several English classical musicians in these recordings.

Paul Mauriat was awarded the Grand Prix from the French recording industry, a MIDEM trophy, and in 1997 won the prestigious distinction of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture.

In 2002, Serge Elhaik published an authorised biography, Paul Mauriat: une vie en bleu.