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Lou Gramm

Lou
Gramm is an American rock vocalist and songwriter best known for being
the original lead vocalist for Foreigner.   Lou co-wrote many of the
songs for Foreigner and went on to have a successful solo career as
well.  Gramm was the vocalist for many top-40 hits including “Cold as
Ice”, “Waiting for a Girl Like You”, “I Want to Know What Love Is”, “I
Don’t Want to Live Without You” and his solo hit “Midnight Blue”.


Gramm was born in Rochester, New
York, and began his musical career in his mid-teens, playing in local
Rochester bands.  He later became front man for the band Black Sheep.
 Black Sheep had the distinction of being the first American band signed
to the Chrysalis label, which released their first single, “Stick
Around” in 1973.  They were the opening act for KISS when an icy
accident with their equipment truck on the New York State Thruway
suddenly ended the band’s tour on Christmas Eve, 1975. Unable to support
its albums with live performances, Black Sheep came prematurely to a
screeching halt.


A year earlier, Lou Gramm had the opportunity to meet his future bandmate Mick Jones.  Jones was in

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search of a lead vocalist for a
new band he was assembling and invited Gramm to audition for the job of
lead singer.  With the blessings of his Black Sheep bandmates, Gramm
flew down to New York to audition for the still-unnamed band.  With his
powerful vocals, Lou easily got the Job with the band initially known as
“Trigger,” and later renamed to Foreigner.  Lou Gramm became one of the
most successful rock vocalists of the late 1970s and 1980s. Circus
magazine in 1978 upon release of “Hot Blooded” commented that Lou Gramm
had a voice that Robert Plant might envy.  His unique vocals have made
Foreigner one of Billboard’s Top 100 Artists of All Time in hit songs
history.


Gramm was the lead vocalist on
all of Foreigner’s hit songs, including “Feels Like the First Time”,
“Cold as Ice”, “Long, Long Way from Home”, “Hot Blooded”, “Double
Vision”, “Blue Morning, Blue Day”, “Head Games”, “Dirty White Boy”,
“Urgent”, “Juke Box Hero”, “Break It Up” and “Say You Will”. He co-wrote
most of the songs for the band, which achieved two of its biggest hits
with the ballads “Waiting for a Girl Like You”, which spent ten weeks at
#2 on the American Hot 100, and “I Want to Know What Love Is”, which
was a #1 hit internationally in 1985.  Their first 8 singles cracked the
Billboard Top 20, making them the first group since the Beatles to
achieve this in 1980.

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By 1987, Foreigner was struggling
with ongoing internal conflicts.  During this period, Gramm released
his first solo album, Ready or Not, which received critical acclaim and
contained a top five hit single with “Midnight Blue”. This was followed
by the 1987 Foreigner album Inside Information, which reached number 15
on Billboard’s album chart.  The extracted “Say You Will” was released
late that year, and “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” followed.


Gramm left Foreigner for good and
has been touring the U.S., Canada, and Mexico steadily since January
2004. As of 2013, Lou Gramm continues to tour with his band performing
many of his old Foreigner hits.  In May 2013, Triumph Books released
Gramm’s autobiography Juke Box Hero: My Five Decades in Rock ‘n’ Roll.
 On June 13, 2013, Gramm, along with Foreigner bandmate Mick Jones, were
inducted in to the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame where the two performed
“Juke Box Hero” and “I Want to Know What Love Is”, marking their first
performance together in nearly a decade.


Although Uptown Theatre has
hosted Foreigner before, this is the first time Lou Gramm has performed
at Uptown.  Lou will be bringing his signature vocals along with the
classic hits of Foreigner making for a powerful combination and exciting
show

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