[citation needed] One of his first songs, Rendez-vous au Lavandou, co-written with André Pascal, was awarded the 1958 Coq d'or de la Chanson Française.

[citation needed] Mauriat composed the music for several French movie soundtracks (also released on Bel-Air), including Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk (1961), Horace 62 (1962), and Faites Sauter La Banque (1964).

[citation needed] Using the pseudonym of Del Roma, Mauriat was to have his first international hit with Chariot, which he wrote in collaboration with friends Franck Pourcel (co-composer), Jacques Plante (French lyrics) and Raymond Lefèvre (orchestrator).

[2] Between 1967 and 1972, he also wrote numerous songs with André Pascal for Mireille Mathieu; Mon Crédo (1,335,000 copies sold), Viens dans ma rue, La première étoile, Géant.

[citation needed] In 1968, his late 1967 cover of the André Popp/Pierre Cour tune "L'amour est bleu" ("Love Is Blue") became a number 1 hit in the US.

[citation needed] El Cóndor Pasa peaked at number 34 in Australia in 1971[4] Mauriat's collaboration with long-time arranger Gérard Gambus resulted in the 1978 disco/funk album Overseas Call, which was later rediscovered by rare disco collectors in the 2000s.

[5] The album was recorded at the Power Station studio in New York and engineered and remixed by disco producer Bob Clearmountain.

[7] Dimitri described the Cocktail Disco sub-genre as having "that ubiquitous 4/4 beat and flying open high hat, complemented by rich orchestrations, campy over the top vocals, and an often tropical Latin vibe.

[8] In the early to mid-1980s, Paul Mauriat appeared in several Japanese coffee and wine television commercials, which featured music from his orchestra.

He gave his final performance in the Sayonara Concert, recorded live in Osaka, Japan, but his orchestra continued to tour around the world before his death in 2006.

Mauriat's former lead pianist, Gilles Gambus, became the orchestra's conductor in 2000 and led successful tours of Japan, China, and Russia.

In 2005 a classical French Horn instrumentalist named Jean-Jacques Justafré conducted the orchestra during a tour of Japan and Korea.