The String-A-Longs - Love Is Blue (L'amour est bleu)

Описание: From '' Wide World Hits ''
Label: Atco Records – SD 33-241
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1968

Tracklist
A1 More
A2 Places I Remember
A3 Love Is Blue
A4 La Pobracita (Poor Little One)
A5 Silence Is Golden
A6 Black Grass
B1 There Is A Mountain
B2 I'll Be There
B3 Blue Guitar
B4 Groovin'
B5 Black Is Black
B6 Someone Stronger

© 2011 Ace Records
℗ 2011 Ace Records

Notes

The String-A-Longs were an American instrumental group from Plainview, Texas, United States.
The band consisted of Richard Stephens and Jimmy Torres alternating lead guitars, Keith McCormack on rhythm guitar, Aubrey de Cordova, bass guitar and Don Allen, drums.
They are best known for their hit single, "Wheels", which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in and was the number 8 single of 1961.

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"L'amour est bleu" ("Love Is Blue") is a song recorded by Greek singer Vicky Leandros with music composed by André Popp and French lyrics written by Pierre Cour. It represented Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest 1967 held in Vienna, placing fourth.

It has since been recorded by many other musicians, most notably French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat, whose familiar instrumental version – recorded in late 1967 – became the first number-one by a French lead artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

Background

Conception

"L'amour est bleu" was composed by André Popp with French lyrics by Pierre Cour. It describes the pleasure and pain of love in terms of colours (blue and grey) and elements (water and wind). The lyrics of the English version ("Blue, blue, my world is blue …") focus on colours only (blue, grey, red, green, and black), using them to describe components of lost love.

Eurovision

The Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT) internally selected "L'amour est bleu" as its entry for the 12th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and a Greek-born 17-year-old Vicky Leandros as its performer as Vicky.

In addition to the French-language original version, she recorded the song in English –as "Colours of Love" with lyrics by Bryan Blackburn–, German –as "Blau wie das Meer" with lyrics by Klaus Munro–, Italian –as "L'amore è blu"–, and Dutch –as "Liefde is zacht"–, that were released in nineteen countries.

On 8 April 1967, the Eurovision Song Contest was held at the Großer Festsaal der Wiener Hofburg in Vienna hosted by Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), and broadcast live throughout the continent. Vicky performed "L'amour est bleu" as the second song of the evening. Claude Denjean conducted the event's live orchestra in the performance of the entry.

At the close of voting, It had received 17 points, placing it fourth in a field of seventeen, behind "Il doit faire beau là-bas" (France), "If I Could Choose" (Ireland) and the winning song, "Puppet on a String" (United Kingdom). It was succeeded as Luxembourgian representative at the 1968 contest by "Nous vivrons d'amour" by Chris Baldo & Sophie Garel.

Aftermath

"L'amour est bleu" achieved greater success through cover versions of the song by other artists. Some forty years after its original release, "L'amour est bleu", along with Domenico Modugno's "Nel blu dipinto di blu" (better known as "Volare") and Mocedades' "Eres tú", still counts as one of very few non-winning Eurovision entries ever to become a worldwide hit. The song has since become a favourite of Contest fans, most notably appearing as part of a medley introducing the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, one of only three non-winning songs to be involved.

Legacy

Paul Mauriat version

A DJ in Minneapolis played the recording and asked the audience to respond, and was inundated with phone calls about the song, and interest in the song then quickly spread around the country.

The song became a number-one hit in the USA for five weeks in February and March 1968, the first recording by a French artist to top the Billboard Hot 100. Mauriat's version became a gold record, and its five-week run at the top is the second longest of any instrumental of the Hot 100 era, after "Theme from A Summer Place". The song also spent 11 weeks atop Billboard's Easy Listening survey, and held the longest-lasting title honours on this chart for 25 years. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 2 song for 1968. It is the best-known version of the song in the United States. The Mauriat recording also reached No. 2 in Canada (No. 12 Year End), and No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart. The Mauriat album containing "Love Is Blue", Blooming Hits, also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top LP's and Tapes chart for five weeks. The song sold fewer than 30,000 units in France, but 2 million singles and 800,000 LPs were sold in the US.

~more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27amo...

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Available on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4lRkDY...