60s Teen Idol Lou Christie Passes Away At 82
Image Source: Asbury Park Press
Another musical legend from the '60s has passed away. Lou Christie, the singer and teen idol known for the song “Lightning Strikes,” passed away on June 17th at the age of 82. His family said in a statement on social media that he passed away after a brief illness.
Born Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco on February 19th, 1943, in Glenwillard, Pennsylvania, he grew up in suburban Pittsburgh and studied music and voice while at Moon Area High School. His teacher, Frank Cummings, wanted him to pursue a career in classical music, but Sacco had aspirations of cutting a record that would be featured on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. He met Twyla Herbert, a classically trained musician who would become his regular songwriting partner, when he was just 15, while Herbert was 20 years older than him. Sacco performed with several vocal groups between 1959 and 1962, and he had a minor local hit with the song “The Jury” by Lugee & The Lions. He graduated from high school in 1961 and traveled to New York City, where he worked as a session vocalist.
During this time, Sacco approached music executive Nick Cenci with some demos. Cenci gave the young singer two suggestions: 1. Adopt the stage name of Lou Christie. 2. Listen to the recently released “Sherry” by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. Cenci liked Christie's falsetto voice and suggested that he use that song as a model, and that is precisely what Christie and Herbert did. The duo used the song as a model for their original song, “The Gypsy Cried.” It became a regional hit under Pittsburgh-based label C & C Records, but it was soon picked up by Roulette Records, becoming a national hit after airplay slowly spread across the country. He had two more hits in 1963, including the track “Two Faces Have I,” which reached number six on the charts. During this star-making process, Christie resisted his handlers' attempts to make him into just another teen idol.
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Christie began touring on the Chitlin Circuit in 1964 as part of the Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars, traveling with the likes of The Supremes and the Ronettes.
“We’d travel 300 miles a day, all through the South. It was like a freedom bus,” Christie recalled, “It was a dangerous period we went through in the early ’60s, that whole Selma thing. They wouldn’t let us go into diners. People shot at the bus and threw rocks at the bus. They would say, ‘We’re gonna stop the show tonight because the white people can’t go on if the band is Black, and the Black people can’t go on …’ and we said, ‘No, this is what the show is.’ We all stuck together.”
The singer then signed with the Columbia Pictures label Colpix, and they wanted him to go into films. Christie, however, was not interested, as he thought the teen beach movies they wanted him to do were more Frankie Avalon's territory.
His career was interrupted when he was enlisted in the army, but after he was discharged, his career picked right back up when he released perhaps his biggest hit, “Lightning Strikes” with MGM Records. The song prominently features Christie’s falsetto vocals and shot to number one on his birthday, February 19th, 1966. He followed it with “Rhapsody in the Rain,” which reached number 16 on the Billboard Top 100. The song faced controversy due to its subject matter, which was about a teenager having sex in the backseat of a car in the rain. Stations especially took issue with the line “our love went much too far.”
Christie was dropped from the label in the late 60s but was soon picked up by Columbia, who the singer also felt was trying to mold him into a “beach party” teen idol, so he quickly left the label for Buddah Records. Christie had a surprise hit with the Wall of Sound and uptempo track “I’m Gonna Make You Mine,” peaking at number 10. However, he had his best critical release with his concept album, Paint America Love. Christie remained active in producing new music even after joining the oldies circuit in the 1980s, and he released his last album, Summer in Malibu, in 2015 and his last single, “Luv Attack,” in 2022.
Lou Christie is survived by his wife, former Miss England Francesca Winfield, and their daughter Bianca. Their son, Christopher, was killed in a motorcycle crash at the age of 46.
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