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| Lou Christie and I reconnected in the Facebook era on March 14, 2022. |
This has been a rough week for me with deaths of great musicians I cared about and interviewed, first Brian Wilson and now Lou Christie. Lou's death hit me harder because I knew him better, and, unlike Brian, whose mind suffered considerable damage from substance abuse, trauma, and psychological illness, Lou was one-hundred-percent present when I interviewed him.
I interviewed Lou a couple of times in early 1993 for what he and his manager envisioned would become an "as told to" memoir. Sadly those plans fizzled—I'm not sure why (though my youth and inexperience as an author probably had something to do with it)—but I did write a brief press bio that his manager used as liner notes to a privately pressed CD of his hits.
Lou was a supremely talented, terrifically gracious man who loved his fans. He was also a gifted lyricist who wrote songs that told stories—remarkable stories, sometimes with unreliable narrators. Listen to "If My Car Could Only Talk" and you'll feel for the poor soldier coming home from leave to his beloved girlfriend, only to suffer "a flash of suspicion: 'you learned a new way of kissin.'" Or "Rhapsody in the Rain," where he sings about the windshield wipers that once seemed to say "forever/forever" and now only say, "never, never."
Like so many fans, I was in love with "Lugee," and meeting him (chastely) did nothing whatsoever to remove his mystique. There are not a lot of artists of whom I can say that. Lou Christie was a star in the old Hollywood way, though his fame had come with the help of Philadelphia's "Idolmaker," Bob Marcucci. He was big; it's the screens and speakers that got small. I am grateful to have basked in the brief and brilliant glow of his lightning.
I interviewed Lou a couple of times in early 1993 for what he and his manager envisioned would become an "as told to" memoir. Sadly those plans fizzled—I'm not sure why (though my youth and inexperience as an author probably had something to do with it)—but I did write a brief press bio that his manager used as liner notes to a privately pressed CD of his hits.
Lou was a supremely talented, terrifically gracious man who loved his fans. He was also a gifted lyricist who wrote songs that told stories—remarkable stories, sometimes with unreliable narrators. Listen to "If My Car Could Only Talk" and you'll feel for the poor soldier coming home from leave to his beloved girlfriend, only to suffer "a flash of suspicion: 'you learned a new way of kissin.'" Or "Rhapsody in the Rain," where he sings about the windshield wipers that once seemed to say "forever/forever" and now only say, "never, never."
Like so many fans, I was in love with "Lugee," and meeting him (chastely) did nothing whatsoever to remove his mystique. There are not a lot of artists of whom I can say that. Lou Christie was a star in the old Hollywood way, though his fame had come with the help of Philadelphia's "Idolmaker," Bob Marcucci. He was big; it's the screens and speakers that got small. I am grateful to have basked in the brief and brilliant glow of his lightning.
