Changing the Recipe

For those whose idea of an oldie is pre-rock 'n' roll, there is still hope. A record called Love Is Blue has become a hit without any of the ingredients that pop musicians have considered necessary for the past few years: the juggernaut beat, the vocalisthenic performance, and the strain of novelty.

Love Is Blue is concocted according to an entirely different recipe. Its rocking rhythm cradles a plaintive, folklike melody swathed in lush strings and horns. It is an all-instrumental number, the first to become a bestseller since 1963. And it is practically gimmick-free, which may account for its unusual staying power at the top of the charts: this week in Billboard the single release ranks as No. 2 after five weeks in the No. 1 slot, where the average tenure is only a little more than two weeks. The album containing the song is still No. 1, outselling such redoubtable pop stars as the Beatles and Bob Dylan.

It would be hard to find anyone in the music business who is more surprised by the record's success than the man who made it: lean, mustachioed French Orchestra Leader Paul Mauriat, 43. A veteran of ten years in Paris recording studios, Mauriat has provided suave backgrounds for such singers as Charles Aznavour and Mireille Mathieu, and has turned out hundreds of piquant pop orchestrations for his own instrumental albums. Three of his albums had been released in the U.SL during the past two years, selling moderately (around 25,000 copies per album) in the same market that supports such American counterparts as Percy Faith and Nelson Riddle.

Wider Palette. Then, early this year, Mauriat's single of Love Is Blue suddenly caught on. To date it has sold 1,850,000 copies. In turn, his albums took off too: sales of Blooming Hits, the LP that includes Love Is Blue, have soared to 750,000. Mauriat's record is also in the top 25 in England and has started to sell briskly in Japan (though not, as yet, in France). Recently he was invited to the U.S. for a TV performance on The Ed Sullivan Show and was plied with offers for cross-country personal-appearance tours.

It is all very unsettling for the quiet, fastidious musician, who rises by 5 a.m. every day to begin working at an upright piano in his suburban Paris apartment. The son of a Marseille postal inspector, he learned piano and violin from his father, entered the Marseille Conservatory at ten, and soon seemed headed for the life of a concert pianist. Instead, he veered off into a jazz career at 17, eventually became interested in the wider instrumental palette and richer sonorities of pop arranging. Established though he was in the profession, he remained a blank to the public, since French disk jockeys rarely credit orchestra leaders by name. But that was before Love Is Blue became red hot. Now color him gold.

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