"Caloooooogero, Caloooooogero, Calo, Calo, Caloooooogero!" Hundreds of groupies huddled close to the Olympia stage on Sunday night, chanting Calogero's name with all the fervency of a religious mantra. And when the singer himself appeared, kitted out in a crisp white shirt and full rock star pose, Calo-mania threatened to reach fever pitch. Calogero had already strutted the hallowed stage at the Olympia with his first group, Les Charts – and he'd vowed to make it back there one day as a solo act. Mission accomplished and with an impressive verve and energy, even if the singer did roll out the songs from his second album a little too mechanically, later admitting backstage that he "can't bear talking between songs!"

Swooping into his vertiginously high notes with the greatest of ease, Calogero swept his audience along behind him. And the crowd needed little encouragement to sing along, launching into the catchy melodies and chorus lines they'd listened to a thousand times on record. Partir ou rester, Aussi libre que moi, Prendre racine and the electronically enhanced beats of Tien An Men went down a storm with the crowd, as did the singer's mega-hit En apesanteur. After making a name for himself as the composing talent behind Florent Pagny, Hélène Ségara (Au nom d'une femme), Pascal Obispo (Millésime) and Patrick Fiori (Que tu reviennes) and writing three songs for the French musical Les Dix commandements, there's no doubt about it – at the age of 31 Calogero is ready to launch what appears to be a seriously promising singing career in his own right.

And in case anyone should be tempted to forget his name, it's there in bold letters on the album cover (photographed by Kate Barry), calliagraphed on the singer's bare skin! A bold statement, an assumption of identity which Calogero (and that's with a hard 'g' by the way!) sees as a real turning-point in his career. Gone are the days when he used Charly as a stage name; these days Calogero is intent on revealing the real him. "I like my Christian name because it's got an original ring to it," he says, "although I admit it's not very easy to pronounce. It was my grandfather's name actually. It's a name that's originally Greek or Sicilian, I believe, which was brought over to Sicily by an invading army. I thought it would be a good idea to emphasise my name a bit this time round and that's why we decided to make it so bold on the album cover."

Calogero has an openly seductive side to him – even if he refrained from showing off his 'piercing' on stage this time round and he has lost the cute boyish curls from his Charly days! Calogero Maurici (the son of Sicilian immigrants based in Grenoble) had a way with girls right from the start, sending female sectors of the audience swooning when he first took to the stage at the age of 15. The talented young bass-player teamed up with his brother, Giaocchino, and a childhood friend and formed boy-wonder band Les Charts in 1986. The threesome went on to play countless gigs up and down the country over the next ten years and recorded four albums together, including their best-selling number Notre monde à nous (which clocked up respectable sales of 200,000).

After Les Charts split Calogero re-invented himself as a composer, writing strings of chart hits for top French solo acts such as Pascal Obispo. It was Obispo who encouraged the young melodist to get up behind the mike and sing his own songs. And Calogero soon ended up going into the studio and recording a debut album entitled Au milieu des autres (which, despite the fact it never enjoyed mainstream success, still managed to sell 50,000 copies). But proving the old showbizz motto that everything comes to he who waits, Calogero's real solo success was still to come!

Sneaking backstage at the Olympia to meet the French Sicilian seducer in person, the first thing that strikes you about Calogero is his serenity and self-confidence. "When you launch your career writing material for showbizz stars," he admits, "that obviously means your name gets known a bit quicker. But I think you've got to be extremely patient in this business. If you want to get anywhere at all, you've got to ignore what other people say and have confidence in yourself and your own gut instincts."

As for his years spent hidden in the shadow of other singers, composing made-to-measure melodies for France's leading chart-toppers, Calogero claims he has no regrets. "Honestly, it never bothered me at all because I kept up my own singing career in parallel to my songwriting collaborations. When I supported other singers (like Pascal Obispo) in concert I could see audiences were really receptive to me. I've always known I had a good voice. I know how to sing and - without any false modesty here – I feel I was really cut out to be a singer!"

So what of his reputation for being an on-stage ladies' man? "I think it's probably my voice that does that," he says earnestly, "It's got a certain style and natural softness about it that instantly puts a bit of a romantic spin on things. My voice can give certain musical phrases a melancholy edge too. But it's not deliberate. I wouldn't classify myself as a 'romantic crooner' or anything!"

Calogero is obviously not keen to linger on the subject, so we move rapidly onto music instead and he instantly becomes more eloquent. "Honestly, if you took my music away from me, I'd be a complete orphan!" he declares, "My first musical influences came from across the Channel, you know. I grew up on a diet of British pop music, listening to The Cure, Depeche Mode and U2. And that marked me for the rest of my life! I'm a big fan of French music too though. I love Barbara and William Sheller and early Julien Clerc. And all those influences can really be heard in my music. My sound's essentially a mix of traditional French influences and Brit pop inspiration!"

And what about the rumour, widely reported in the French press, that one of Calogero's greatest dreams in life would be to write for Johnny Hallyday? "Yes, it's true," he admits with disarming honesty, "Like just about everyone else in this business, I'd love to! But there's no hurry! There are a lot of other artists I admire and respect too, like Florent Pagny, for instance. It was thanks to a song that I wrote for Florent that I made my name as a songwriter and that means I can sing it on stage myself now and have an instant link to him. One of my biggest dreams would be to write an entire album for Florent Pagny!"

With his pugnacious charm and his ability to roll out the kind of catchy hits that prove impossible to get out of your head for weeks (much in the manner of Jean-Jacques Goldman in the 90s), Calogero has an evident mainstream career ahead of him. When the question of going international arises, Calogero's first port of call – cited without a moment's hesitation – would be Italy. "I've already got someone to do an Italian version of En apesanteur for me," he admits, "But right now what I want to do is establish myself in France. I don't want to disperse myself too much for the time being!"

By the end of his concert at the Olympia, Calogero's wild charms had completely won over the audience. Gracefully acknowledging his lyricists (Alana Filippi, Patrice Guirao, Lionel Florence and even former 60's pop diva Françoise Hardy), Calogero made a deep bow and was gone. But he was called back on stage for umpteen encores, one of which he shared with Senegalese star Ismaël Lô and his harmonica. Judging by the audience's euphoric reaction at the end of the show, it looks like Calogero-mania could soon be coming to a town near you. You have been warned!

Calogero's tour continues until April 2003 and, for those who didn't catch him the first time round, he will be back in Paris at the Olympia (on 27 & 28 Feb 2003).