About Lou Gramm
Louis Andrew Grammatico , known professionally as Lou Gramm, is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known as co-founder and lead vocalist of the rock band Foreigner from 1976 to 1990 and again from 1992 to 2003, during which time the band had numerous successful albums and singles. In 2024, Gramm was selected as an inductee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Foreigner.
Gramm was born on 2 May 1950, in Rochester, New York, the son of Nikki , a singer, and Bennie Grammatico, a band leader and trumpeter. He attended Gates-Chili High School in Rochester, graduating with the class of 1968, and majored in education and art at Monroe Community College.
Gramm became front man for the band Black Sheep. Black Sheep was the first American band signed to the Chrysalis label, which released their first single, "Stick Around" . Soon after this initial bit of success, Black Sheep signed with Capitol Records, releasing two albums in succession: Black Sheep and Encouraging Words . They were the opening act for Kiss when an accident with their equipment truck on the ice-covered New York State Thruway suddenly ended the band's tour on Christmas Eve, 1975. Unable to support its albums with live performances, Black Sheep disbanded.
A year earlier, Gramm met his future bandmate Mick Jones. Jones was in Rochester New York performing with the band Spooky Tooth, and Gramm had given Jones a copy of Black Sheep's first album . It was early in 1976, not long after Black Sheep's truck accident, when Jones, in search of a lead singer for a new band he was assembling, expressed his interest in Gramm and invited him to audition.
Gramm traveled to New York to audition and got the job. Lou Grammatico then became Lou Gramm. The band, which was initially known as "Trigger," was later renamed "Foreigner". With Foreigner, Gramm became one of the most successful rock vocalists of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Foreigner's first eight singles cracked the Billboard Top 20, making them the first band since The Beatles to achieve this milestone. Gramm performed vocals on all of Foreigner's hits including "Urgent", "Juke Box Hero", "Break It Up", "Say You Will", and "I Don't Want to Live Without You". He co-wrote most of the band's songs, including the hit ballads "Waiting for a Girl Like You", which spent ten weeks at #2 on the 1981/82 American Hot 100, and "I Want to Know What Love Is", which was a number one hit in eight countries.
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