Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco was born on 19 February 1943.
Growing up in suburban Pittsburgh he studied music and voice at Moon Area High School.
In 1962, Sacco approached Nick Cenci with some demo tapes. Cenci liked his falsetto voice and suggested that he listen to the Four Seasons’ recent hit Sherry. Sacco and his songwriting friend Twyla Herbert used the song as a model to write an original song called The Gypsy Cried. Cenci also changed Sacco’s name to Lou Christie.
The Gypsy Cried became a regional hit, selling 30,000 copies in Pittsburgh. Airplay slowly spread across the country, and the record reached #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Two Faces Have I followed the success, reaching #6 while How Many Teardrops stalled at #46 as Christie’s career was temporarily derailed by his induction into the US Army.
Ten months before The Beach Boys‘ ‘pocket symphony’ Good Vibrations made the charts, Christie struck gold with the schizophrenic suite about love and lust, Lightnin’ Strikes.
After Lightnin’ Strikes topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965, two of his former labels sensed he was hot and released singles of his early material.
After being dropped by MGM and an unfruitful stint with Columbia Records in the late 1960s, Christie teamed up with Buddah Records and bubblegum music record producer Tony Romeo and had a surprise Wall of Sound hit I’m Gonna Make You Mine in the early autumn of 1969.
The song peaked at #10 in the US, but climbed to #2 in the UK and became his biggest hit there.
A follow-up, She Sold Me Magic, charted only in the UK, peaking at #25, and was later covered by Elton John.
Conversely, Are You Getting Any Sunshine? only charted in America, where it reached #73.
