Philips 248
Producer: None listed
Track listing: Somethin’ Stupid / Penny Lane / This Is My Song / Seuls au Monde (Alone in the World) / Inch Allah / (There’s a) Kind of Hush / Puppet on a String / L’amour est Bleu (Love is Blue) /Adieu a la Nuit (Adieu to the Night) / Mama
March 2, 1968
5 weeks
Like the Singing Nun, French bandleader Paul Mauriat was brought to the American wing of Philips by an affiliated label in another territory. “Part of our plan was to have a working relationship with all of our licensees in Europe,” says Lou Simon, then product manager at Philips. “The idea was to cross-fertilize as much product from the U.S. there and from there to here. When the Paul Mauriat material came from our French organization, we thought the orchestrations were interesting.”
Strictly speaking, Mauriat was not a newcomer. Under the pseudonym Del Roma, he had written the French instrumental “Chariot.” When the song received English lyrics and was re-titled “I Will Follow Him,” it became a Number One hit single for Little Peggy March on April 27, 1963.
However, Mauriat wasn’t having much success under his own name. He had recorded as many as three full albums that were released with little fanfare in Europe before Blooming Hits. But Mauriat’s fortunes changed once Philips executives in America heard an instrumental called “L’Amour est Bleu.” Says Simon, “We thought it had interesting melodic content and we were looking for things to sell at the time.”
As a test, Philips opted to release the song, with its title translated into English, as a single. “It had not been a hit worldwide,” Simon says. “Paul only had moderate success in France up to that point, but then ‘Love Is Blue’ caught on.”
The song, written by Andre Popp and Pierre Cour, had a spotty track record prior to Mauriat’s cover. In 1967, it was entered in the Eurovision song contest and placed fourth. The song was recorded by Vicky Leandros in 19 different languages, but it didn’t really catch on until Mauriat’s instrumental version was released.
When the single began climbing the charts, Philips contacted Mauriat’s French label and asked for an entire album. Ironically, Blooming Hits also included a cover of “Puppet on a String,” the song made famous by Sandie Shaw, which won the 1967 Eurovision song contest.
Other songs given the Mauriat treatment on the album included “Penny Lane” by the Beatles; “Somethin’ Stupid,” which had been a Number One hit by Nancy and Frank Sinatra; “Mama,” cowritten by Sonny Bono and “(There’s a) Kind of Hush,” by Herman’s Hermits.
On February 10, 1968, “Love is Blue” hit the top of the Hot 100. It had already inspired four different cover versions that also hit the chart. Three weeks later, Blooming Hits hit the summit, ending the eight-week run of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. Blooming Hits was Mauriat’s first and only album chart-topper. He continued to chart albums through 1971, but not of his subsequent efforts cracked the top 50.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of March 2, 1968
1. Blooming Hits, Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra
2. John Wesley Harding, Bob Dylan
3. Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles
4. Axis: Bold as Love, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
5. Lady Soul, Aretha Franklin