Lou Christie
Nobody's going out of his way to nominate Lou Christie for the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, or any other career honors. Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco looked like one of the long line of Italianate pouter pigeons with a forte of feeble Fabianisms. He sounded like a shriller Frankie Valli, and he's thought of (if at all) as a second-rater below the Bobbies and Frankies who, the consensus has it, dominated early Sixties pop.
A grave injustice. From "The Gypsy Cried" on, the records of this multi-talented Pittsburgher (who actually collaborated with a Gypsy woman, Twyla Herbert, with 20 years on him) featured a weird keening edge and frequent musical innovation (check the proto-reggae rhythms of 1963's "Two Faces Have I") that set them apart.
By his 1966-67 peak, Lou's songs typically swelled from modest beginnings to thunderous orchestral climaxes. As he effortlessly alternated between his pleasant, slightly orotund tenor and that piercing trademark falsetto, even higher-pitched background vocalists wove in Tourette's Syndrome whoops, witches' babble, and Greek-chorus admonitions aimed at the woebegone singer as he wallowed in the most extraordinary morass of tortured jealousy, revenge fantasies, wounded macho pride, betrayed trust and guilt-edged lust.
Vivid metaphors sliced through the emotional wreckage -- love as a "Trapeze," those lubricious lightning strikes, or the talking windshield wipers of "Rhapsody In The Rain" (extended to an entire automobile in the boggling, mini-operatic "If My Car Could Only Talk").
By Mid-1967, with "Back To The Days Of The Romans," Lou was parroting conservative cant about Sixties America recapitulating Caligulan decadence, while warning "Don't laugh at the devil's existence." Considering also the flipside, the suicidally frustrated "Don't Stop Me (Jump Off The Edge Of Love)," a chilling chunk of cod-psychedelia cash-in even bleaker than the Supremes' awesome "Reflections," Lou must have known he'd pushed the parameters of pop torment as far as he could. Conventionality (relatively speaking) and obscurity followed, but don't overlook the rhapsody of his reign. -Ken Barnes
True Lou: Enlightnin'ment: The Best Of Lou Christie (Rhino). Lou Christie International Fan Club site: here.