Paul Mauriat Is Anything But Blue.
Billboard: What's the story behind "Love Is Blue"?
Paul Mauriat: To be honest, I wasn't very fond of the song (the track composed by Andre Popp with lyrics by Pierre Cour was known in France as "L'Amour Est Bleu" was performed by Vicky Leandros and was the Luxembourg entry for 1967 Eurovision song contest). The song was published by Philips, so I covered it. It was quite an instant hit. In the U.S., a Minneapolis DJ called Alan Mitchell started to play the song and asked the audience to react. He was flooded with phone calls. It quickly took off the whole country.
Billboard: How did you react when you heard the song was on U.S. charts?
Paul Mauriate: I coundn't believe when the president of Philips told me the song was climbing the Billboard charts. I was astounded, because it illustrates quite well the saying that you're never a prophet in your own country, as it had sold less than 30,000 units in France. In the U.S., we sold 2 million singles and 800,000 LPs. The irony was that, in 1967, my contract was about to expire, and someone called (label executive) Lou Reisner and suggeted that Philips sign me for an additional three years because he was sure I would score a major hit soon. He was right!
Billboard: Did this success change your life?
Paul Mauriate: Of cause it did. but I didn't realized at that time what it meant. For me it was just a name on a listing. And it affected my whole life. But afterwards, I took it as a challenge. I had to prove that I was still able to sell, without the help of a No. 1 hit. Many in the industry said it would be one-off, but the truth is that I have never stopped recording and selling records. Today, I still sell an average of 800,000 units a year, which by all standards is not bad.
(from Billboard.com)
