- MUSICIANS :
- Lou Gramm (vocals)
Nils Lofgren (guitar, bass, keyboards)
Philip Ashley (keyboards)
Ben Gramm (drums) - Produced by: Pat Moran, Lou Gramm
- Engineered by: tbd
- Mixed by : tbd
- Mastered by: tbd
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LOU GRAMM - Ready Or NotUS Release : WOU1728 STOCK STATUS: IN STOCK - ships in 1 day |
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| Lou Gramm began his musical career in his mid-teens, playing in local Rochester bands, including St. James Infirmary (later The Infirmary), and PHFFT. He later sang harmony vocals in another local band, Poor Heart. Lou then went on to sing and play drums, and to eventually become 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" (1973). Soon after this initial bit of success, Black Sheep signed with Capitol Records, releasing two albums in succession [S/T (1974) and Encouraging Words (1975). 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 Gramma had the opportunity to meet his future bandmate Mick Jones. Jones was in Rochester performing with the band Spooky Tooth, and Gramm had given Jones a copy of Black Sheep's first album (S/T). It was early in 1976, not long after Black Sheep's truck accident, when Jones, in search of a lead vocalist for a new band he was assembling, expressed his interest in Gramm and invited him in a phone call 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, he easily got the job. The band initially known as "Trigger," and later renamed Foreigner, became one of the most successful rock bands of the late 1970s and 1980s. Gramm was the lead vocalist on many of Foreigner's hit songs, including "Feels Like the First Time", "Cold as Ice", "Hot Blooded", "Urgent", "Double Vision", "Juke Box Hero", "Head Games", "Dirty White Boy" 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 1981-82 American Hot 100, and "I Want to Know What Love Is", which was a #1 hit internationally (U.S. & U.K.) in 1985. The latter was credited only to Jones; however, Gramm indicated that he had contributed to its writing. Gramm and Jones had a volatile sort of chemistry that exploded into many a chart-topper, yet at times they clashed artistically. Following the band's second album, the wildly successful Double Vision, shifts in personnel began to take place. Following their next album, Head Games, Gramm and Jones jointly decided to reduce the band's lineup from six to four members. The next album, which Gramm has called the high point of his work with Foreigner, was aptly titled 4. Gramm wanted the band to remain true to its purer rock origins, favoring music with a solid drum and guitar structure, whereas Jones embraced the 1980s style of synthesizer ballads - a more lucrative approach at the time. Indeed, the next album, Agent Provocateur, would find Jones moving creatively in the opposite direction from Gramm, seeking out potential co-producers such as Trevor Horn, and then Alex Sadkin, which ended up giving Foreigner's sound a somewhat new-wavish, keyboard-dominant quality. By 1987, Foreigner continued to struggle 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". | |
