‘Rhapsody in the Rain’ Singer Lou Christie Dies at 82
If you were a music-loving teen in the throes of hormones and heartbreak during the 1960s, a Lou Christie tune likely helped get you through. Christie, the falsetto-voiced, bedroom-eyed dreamboat, became a household name with chart-topping, blood-stirring hits like “Lightnin’ Strikes” and the controversial “Rhapsody in the Rain” (both of which he cowrote while in his early teens). He died at his Pittsburgh home following a brief illness. He was 82.
Of the distinctive voice that afforded him a six-decade music career, “I don’t do anything to maintain it,” the Glenwillard, Pennsylvania, native said in a 2021 interview. “I’m not a smoker. And I don’t go out to loud places. … I try to take care of myself. I’m not a junk eater. I don’t think I’ve had a bottle of soda pop, or whatever you want to call it, in the past 10 years. My throat has been unbelievable to me.”
“Lightin’ Strikes” … and controversy, too
Born Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco, Christie adopted his stage name in 1962. He scored his first hit with the No. 1 smash “Lightnin’ Strikes” in 1966. The dramatic ditty beseeches the narrator’s gal to “understand the makings of a man” and “one-track mind” and not be so hung up on marriage.
Those hormonal harmonies held fast on Christie’s next record, “Rhapsody in the Rain,” which this time featured the narrator and his sweetie ducking into a car to dodge the raindrops. As the title says, not only the weather got a little outta hand and, well, you can figure out the rest.
The lusty lyrics caused some U.S. radio stations to refuse to spin the record until Christie offered up a cleaner version. To keep his record label happy, Christie did just that and the song hit No. 16 on the Billboard charts.
“Time magazine wrote an article that said I was corrupting the youth of the day and … MGM made me go in and change the lyrics,” he told the Standard Speaker. “So I cleaned the lyrics up a little bit. But by the time the kids found out what the record was about, they loved it. Quietly it sold a million. The kids, it didn’t bother them.”
The times were changing — so Christie did, too
Nonetheless, the controversy — and the rising British Invasion — slowed Christie’s rising star. But it never dimmed his love for music. He dabbled in psychedelic pop (without ditching the falsetto that made him famous), became an in-demand session performer, and continued to delight his loyal fans by performing live well into his later years.
Though he was sometimes chalked up as just another mop-haired, swoony teen idol, true Christie fans — as well as appreciative music historians — know there was something a little braver, a little weirder and a little more exciting about him. Lou Christie didn’t just sing catchy pop ditties about boys struggling to stay under control and girls struggling to say no. He turned teeny-bopper hormones into sweet, sweet harmony.
Remind