André Popp

André Popp is a French composer, arranger and conductor born in Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée, on February 19, 1924. Trained on the piano from the age of five, he began his career as a church organist and studied music when, in 1945, he met Jean Broussolle, who encouraged him to move to Paris. After a period playing in a piano bar and accompanying artists at Les Trois Baudets, he worked as an orchestrator at the Club d'Essai de la Radio-Télévision Française, conducting live concerts and composing theme songs. Hired by the Philips label in 1953, he wrote music for a large number of artists, including Les Lavandières du Portugal for Luis Mariano and Tom Pilibi for Jacqueline Boyer, who won the Eurovision Grand Prix in 1960. Other artists with whom he collaborated include Catherine Sauvage, Jacqueline François, Les Frères Jacques, Jacques Brel, Michèle Arnaud, Juliette Gréco, Henri Salvador, Bourvil, Tino Rossi, Les Compagnons de la Chanson, Petula Clark, Marie Laforêt, Isabelle Aubret, France Gall, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy, Nana Mouskouri and Jane Birkin. This prolific period also saw the start of the Piccolo, Saxo & Cie series, designed to familiarize young people with the instruments, and the recording of albums with his own orchestra, both new works and easy-listening covers of hits. His best-known composition, L'Amour est bleu for Vicki Leandros at the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest, was covered worldwide in an orchestral version by Paul Mauriat under the English title Love Is Blue, the second best-selling song of 1968, behind the Beatles' Hey Jude. André Popp also wrote theme songs for radio and television, and music for film. Always in demand over the decades, he worked successively with Claude François, Sylvie Vartan, Dalida and Céline Dion. Awarded the Grand Prix de la Sacem in 1985, he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995. His extensive and varied body of work is the subject of compilations such as Popp Musique (2001), La Musique M'aime (2019) and the 13-CD box set L'Intégrale Instrumentale (2024).

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