Lou Gramm article

[RedWingFan]

Here's an article about Lou that ran here in Michigan. Sounds like he's getting his health back.

Lou Gramm glad to be alive, guest at Celebration
Sunday, September 02, 2007
By John Sinkevics
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- Lou Gramm is lucky to be alive, grateful he still can belt out Foreigner's impressive cache of classic rock hits in festivals such as Celebration on the Grand.

That Foreigner's former lead singer considers his career as satisfying as ever and his voice "as good as it ever was" might qualify as a miracle.

That's because 10 years ago, Gramm was diagnosed with a benign-but-life-threatening brain tumor, initially considered inoperable. It led to memory loss, headaches and, yes, double vision (oddly enough, the title of one of Foreigner's biggest hits).

But "by the grace of God," Gramm happened to be watching a "20/20" segment on ABC about a doctor using laser surgery on previously inoperable tumors. He contacted the physician immediately "and two days later, I was under the knife in a 19-hour operation."

"Unknowingly, I couldn't have gone on for another week or two," the 57-year-old singer said in a recent interview from his home in Rochester, N.Y., while recounting the physical toll of his long recovery, which included taking steroids that caused his weight to balloon.

"It was a tough thing. I'm still taking a ton of medication. ... If there was something good that came out of it, it's that I found a new love and a new trust for the Lord."

So, Gramm -- who performs Foreigner's tunes and his solo hits in the Lou Gramm Band, which includes his brothers, Ben and Richard -- plans to finish his first Christian rock album later this year. Ben, a drummer, insisted Gramm has "gotten back in the groove with his writing."

"I want to express what I've been through and what I feel," Gramm said of the album's Christian motif, "and I need to tell my story."

That story began in the mid-1970s while Gramm was lead singer for the blues-rock band Black Sheep. He got a call from British guitarist Mick Jones asking him to audition for a new group that would become Foreigner.

During its heyday, from 1976 through the mid-'80s, Foreigner racked up 16 Top 40 hits, including the songs "Feels Like the First Time," "Hot Blooded," "Cold as Ice," "Urgent" and "I Want to Know What Love Is."

Although the band would split in the late '80s -- giving Gramm a chance to generate solo hits "Midnight Blue" and "Just Between You and Me" -- Jones and Gramm would reform Foreigner in the early 1990s.

Gramm founded the Lou Gramm Band in 2004 with his brothers, guitarist-bassist Dan Mancuso and keyboard player Andy Knoll. As Celebration on the Grand headliners, they'll wrap up the festival with a 9:50 p.m. show Saturday on Rose Parks Circle.

(That follows an event-filled Friday schedule that culminates with a 9:30 p.m "Fireworks Extravaganza" and includes performances by Kimberley Locke of "American Idol" fame, Those Delta Rhythm Kings, Jimmie Stagger and others.)

"We definitely give it to 'em," Gramm said of playing Foreigner's hits live. "Let's face it: 95 percent of the songs were mine. I was the co-writer of almost everything. We mix in the big Foreigner hits, the hits off of my solo albums and a Beatles song or two. That's a pretty well-rounded show."

Touring with his brothers has been particularly satisfying, he said, because they promised their father on his deathbed they would make music together.

"I've always admired them as musicians ... but the three of us had never played together at the same time," said Gramm, the father of 7-year-old twins and two grown children. "It's really been going great. This is the fourth, maybe fifth, year that I've been touring with my brothers, and I think the band is sounding better than ever."

And he's not surprised that Foreigner's music has demonstrated such staying power on classic rock radio.

"The same things that make them durable and endearing are the same things that made them the hits that they were: catchy guitar lines, in-your-face vocals and an irresistible beat," Gramm said.

"I felt that Foreigner was very versatile in what we did. We could do that British pop 'Feels Like the First Time' to a soulful 'Urgent' to a beautiful 'I Want To Know What Love Is.' There really was a versatility in the playing and songwriting, and that counts for something."

[Red13JoePa]

"Let's face it: 95 percent of the songs were mine. I was the co-writer of almost everything.

Interesting, if somewhat revisionist comment, and one that betrays his still-obviously antagonistic views towards Mick Jones.

Ironically later on he mentions the soulfulness of IWKWLI, a Mick Jones solo writing credit.

[Abitaman]

I don't know Red, That would be like Perry saying he wrote most of the songs, but still saying Neal did an awesome solo on a song. One can be mad or hate a person and still admit that person did something good-ERIC