what Frank is listening to #15 – LOU CHRISTIE – Lightnin' Strikes – (MGM) – 1966
I have always like Lou Christie (I have some of his later albums and they are mainstream "weird" or at least extremely personal albums … "Paint America Love", "Belong the Blue Horizon"), so I was very excited to find this …. it hasn't even been in the pile in the corner for 2 days.
The excitement was helped by the fact that I knew the hit song "Lighnin Strikes" but hadn't heard any of the other tracks.
Lou Christie's career is well documented here:
Briefly though: he is one of the batch of Italian American singers (real name Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco) who flooded the airways in the late 50s / early 60s, qv: Frankie Valli, Bobby Darin, Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Dion, Jack Scott, Freddy Cannon, Johnny Rivers, Bobby Rydell, Bob Gaudio, James Darren (half of 'em are bona fide legends IMHO).
What I like most about Christie is his voice as I have always been a sucker for a good singer as long as they can add their own "personality" to a song. By that I don't mean singers on shows like "Idol" – most (some) of the them have good voices but there is no taste, brains or personality … ultimately it's not enough to just have a good voice, you need that other ingredient which I call "personality" but it could be any number of things which you are using apart from your vocal chords.
And, on this album Christie sings the guts out of the songs – Side 1 is covers and Side 2 is originals (he was one of the first of the teen idols to write his own material). Oddly though, the covers side are fairly mainstream: Bacharach-David ("There's Always Something to Remind Me"), the Martha and the Vandellas Holland-Dozier-Holland track "Heatwave", a nice version of "If I Fell" by Lennon-McCartney, and the old standard "Since I Fell for You" ( the Roy Hamilton version I like the best and this version may be a cover of his)
On the second side his voice soars: falsetto vocals all over the shop which are better than Frankie Valli (arguably) and enough blue eyed soul to rival Len Barry – the highlights are "Trapeze" and "Lightnin Strikes".
It's all perfect mid 60s pop (he should be better known) and he knows how to get the most (drama and emotion) out of every song.
It's a keeper … (though it is quite old and scratchy)
live:
sound:
(originally posted: 24/04/2009)
