@EgyptianShumba.bsky.social
New CD Release
Amazon
Lou Christie
Gypsy Bells -
Columbia Recordings 1967
CDTOP 1601
all the singles and 15 previously unreleased masters
Shindig! No 149
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Vic Templar writes, No one makes music like Lou Christie, a man whose distinctive formula located the musical G-spot and delivered pop ecstasy. This archival release covers the 15 months he spent at Columbia, during which four singles were released, included here in Mono and Stereo, plus 15 unreleased tracks.
With a few judicious covers in the mix [Jobim, Bacharach & David], it's primarily Lou and Twyla Herbert compositions, arranged by Charles Calello. The results are stunning. The immense 'Holding On For Dear Love' should have been a worldwide floor-filler and, if you appreciate the magnificence of 'Lightnin' Strikes,' prime yourself for 'Yellow Lights Say,' 'Don't Stop Me' [a prototype 'She Sold Me Magic'], 'Gypsy Bells', the smoldering soul of 'Paper and Paste' and the cabaret crooning of 'Escape.' Absolute solid gold.
Lou Christiie Songs Unvaulted
by Scott Tady
Beaver County Times
Best of 2024:
Music Reissues Weekly
by Kieron Tyler
Expanding present-day horizons with Lou Christie, the subject of the mind-blowing collection ‘Gypsy Bells: Columbia Recordings 1967,’ which digs as never before into his 1967 spell with Columbia Records
Music Reissues Weekly
by Kieron Tyler
Lou Christie - Gypsy Bells
First-time exploration of the ‘Lightnin’ Strikes’ hit-maker’s 1967 spell with Columbia Records
The Second Disc
by Joe Marchese
Gypsy Bells ... one of the most illuminating and worthwhile archival releases of the year
Lou Christie
Gypsy Bells -
Columbia Recordings 1967
A long-overdue look at a little-heard side of the career of 60s pop giant Lou Christie – his great but ill-fated recordings for Columbia Records – most of which appear here for the first time ever! Lou hit the label right after a massive hit for MGM – and Columbia gave him plenty of time in the studio, and continued his work with producer Charles Calello – the genius who crafted so many wonderful settings for Christie, as well as the Four Seasons at the time. Calello's genius is in full effect here – creating these incredible backdrops for Christie's stunning vocals – really pushing him past simple pop into a whole host of different modes that make the whole thing a great "what if" – had the label not given up on Lou so quickly. The CD features great sound, detailed notes, and 24 tracks in all – 15 of which appear here for the first time ever – a blindingly great mix of tracks that includes "I Remember Gina", "The Greatest Show On Earth", "Blue Champagne", "Tender Loving Care", "Gypsy Bells, "Escape", "Standing On My Promises", "Shake Hands & Walk Away Cryin", "Self Expression", "Yellow Lights Say", "Meditation", and "How Many Days Of Sadness".
~ Dusty Groove
WebVANDA
Kenta's Nothing But Pop!
Mr. Bacharach Longs To Be Close To You
LOU CHRISTIE - Gypsy Bells:
Columbia Recordings 1967 (Ace) CD
I once described singer-songwriter Lou Christie as a cross between Neil Sedaka and Scott Walker, and while that's not an adequate com-parison, it does capture the beyond-category status of this great and instantly recognizable artist. Though growing out of the Brill Building/Girl Group era, Christie and his longtime songwriting partner Twyla Herbert could produce creations from left-field such as "Egyptian Shumba" (written for the Tammys) and "If My Car Could Only Talk," and as a performer, Christie has always possessed smoldering sexuality (check out some of his old 1960s TV appearances online), which was both heightened and perhaps made more acceptable by his Brad Pitt/Troy Donahue style movie-star good looks.
When people in the early '70s would rave to me about the sexuality of David Bowie's performances, I would sometimes ask, "Are you familiar with Lou Christie?"
With his amazing vocal range and inimitable ecstatic flights into falsetto territory, his hits from the 1962-63 era ("The Gypsy Cried," "Two Faces Have I") are unforgettable pop-rock mini-symphonies, and after a break for military service, he came back in 1965-1966 for even greater fame at MGM Records, with the transcendent "Lightnin' Strikes" and "Rhapsody In The Rain." He was at the top of his game when he, along with his arranger Charles Calello, moved to the larger and more dominant Columbia label, where he spent 1967. Four singles (six songs) were released all in the classic Christie-Herbert style (with clever unique lyrical content such as the songs "Back To The Days Of The Romans" and "Shake Hands And Walk Away Cryin’"), and all with the patented Calello discotheque-friendly wall of sound and soaring Christie vocals. These sides found success in Alabama and in Christie's home territory of Pittsburgh, but nothing like the MGM hits, which is unfortunate since there are multiple instant-classics among the Columbia sides.
More than enough material was recorded for an album, and all of those unreleased tracks are included here, also with mono versions of the singles. Without a hit, though, a Columbia album did not happen, and Christie moved on to Buddah Records, where the label's bubblegum orientation merged well with the artist's style, and he went on to have massive success with "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" and eventually released the acclaimed concept album Paint America Love (reissued in 2009 on Rev-ola). Lou Christie is still active as a performer and on social media.
~ Bill Shute, Ugly Things #66
Best Reissues of 2024
Compilations that caught my ear this past year
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Substack
Lou Christie
Gypsy Bells -
Columbia Recordings 1967
Ace (Import)
Gibert https://bit.ly/4kdUzdY *Gyspy*
Lorsqu’il arrive chez Columbia en 1967,
l’Américain Lou Christie a eu plusieurs
tubes [14 national chart records including the chart topping Lightnin' Strikes!] mais semble se chercher. (?) Cette compilation des titres enregistrés pour la compagnie cette année-là (dont beaucoup ne sont pas sortis à l’époque) montre une espèce de
schizophrénie musicale sans précédent.
L’homme, dont les connaisseurs disent qu’il avait une voix couvrant quatre octaves (il chante parfois tellement
aigu qu’on jurerait entendre une femme), part dans tous les sens : beaucoup de morceaux semblent
être sous perfusion Beach Boys ou Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons, et puis tout d’un coup, voici qu’il
se prend pour Frank Sinatra, avec big band et tout le toutim.
Certaines choses sont superbes (understatement of the century!), mais la diversité de l’ensemble rend l’écoute assez compliquée tout de même.
~ Nicolas Ungemuth
Rock & Folk n° 680, Apr 2024
Blues News No. 331 (Issue 3/2025)
Helsinki Finland
LOU CHRISTIE
Gypsy Bells – Columbia Recordings 1967
(Ace CDTOP 1601)
by Pete Hoppula
He was known in Finland too. From his many international mega-hits, Lou Christie's 1966 number one hit Lightnin’ Strikes was selected as a license single for our domestic markets by the MGM record label, represented by Nordic Electric Oy – and even though the song probably didn't become a major sales success here, the fame was enough to keep him in the local headlines whenever suitable reasons arose. Even in Blues News, Christie has appeared frequently, even in the form of his own extensive feature article (BN 5/2000). The last time we heard about him was on June 18, 2025, when it was reported that the artist had passed away at the age of 82.
Born in 1943 in Pennsylvania, Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco, who had received musical training, possessed not only songwriter skills but also a distinctive falsetto voice. In 1962, he was molded into the artist named Lou Christie, and the teen-pop-flavored early successes The Gypsy Cried and Two Faces Have I brought the young man to the surface in 1963 as a Roulette label protégé. The original singer was shuttled from one TV show to another, and there were plenty of tours as well. A new recording contract with MGM in 1965–66 accelerated his popularity again on the record markets, with the hottest bullseye being Lightnin’ Strikes, mentioned just a moment ago. However, a move to a new employer, Columbia, was soon ahead despite the successes. Perhaps the company, which had firmly staked its structures in the soil of films, believed that the handsome young man would be the next fixture star in the silly but quite profitable beach party movies following Frankie Avalon and his associates, but Christie, who took his work seriously, thought otherwise. On the contrary, he wanted to focus on making music.
The intensive Columbia year of 1967 did produce plenty of recordings, of which only three singles were released to the market. Thus, a full CD's worth of material was left gathering dust on the shelf. Now, a significant portion of this fascinating material has been released by Ace for the first time. The information side of the collection has been ensured by Harry Young, who founded the Lou Christie Fan Club back in the 1970s, with his extremely precise liner notes, which leave no scrap of information unmentioned regarding the recording situations, the people involved, or generally Christie's "timeline" for that phase.
Acting as producer and arranger for Christie's Columbia sessions was Charlie Calello, who had previously made hits under his supervision, including with The Four Seasons. Everything was supposed to be primed for new mega-hits. Nevertheless, from the songs mainly composed by Christie himself and his trusted songwriter friend Twyla Herbert, only Shake Hands And Walk Away Cryin’, which sympathetically combined soft pop, Motown rhythm, and girl group sound, rose to the bottom of the Billboard chart at position 95. Predictably, I Remember Gina, inspired by The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and already promising local success, didn't reach the top hundred charts at all. Slightly better results would most likely have allowed Christie to also make a full-length album on Columbia. He would have had the recording reserves for it.
Working with top studios, musicians, producers, and arrangers, Christie also got to demonstrate his stylistic boundlessness. When needed, Lou operated effortlessly in the realm of Frank Sinatra-school Las Vegas crooners (Escape), Bobby Darin-style folk rock (Self Expression), sentimental vocal jazz and swing (Blue Champagne, You’ve Changed), as well as melodramatic and ambitiously structured pop works (Back To The Days Of The Romans, Standing On My Promises, Gypsy Bells). For example, the stunningly multi-layered psychedelic pop and soul hybrid Don’t Stop Me got Jack Nitzsche as its arranger. The unfinished demo of the distinctive Tender Loving Care, on the other hand, shot its patch straight into The Supremes territory.
As one might guess, The Beach Boys' success also gave Christie license to exploit his bright falsetto to the fullest, and polished girl choir backgrounds ensured the whole. In the lyrics, he and Herbert usually didn't skimp either. The creative duo managed to build texts that fit the era and often took stands – when they felt like it, even about yellow traffic lights (Yellow Lights Say). With a few selected cover songs, Christie, for instance, romps through his own interpretation of Dionne Warwick's 1964 recording of the Bacharach-David powerhouse ballad How Many Days Of Sadness and temperamentally versions Paul Leka's sitar-embellished ballad I Need Someone (The Painter), which a year later was recorded by rock bands The Music Asylum and The Lemon Pipers.
Still, it was clear even in this period that pure pop was Christie's number one passion. He enhanced the weight of that side in his production especially with his next record labels, Buddah, as an artist for which he notched his biggest hit in England in 1969: I’m Gonna Make You Mine climbed to number 2 on the British singles chart and reached the Top 10 on Billboard as well.
In any case, the series of hits for the artist, who performed and recorded up until the 2000s, broke off during the 1970s. Could the tapes gathering dust in the Columbia archives have nevertheless guaranteed Lou Christie a more far-reaching and credible career, if this music, unique in its originality, had been understood to be released in somewhat larger batches already at the time of creation? We'll never know that now.
Tight pants. High falsetto.
Smooth baritone.
Wild eyes. Pouting lips.
Wicked moves. Gyrating hips.
Something extra.
Something mysterious.
Something special.
Welcome to the world of
Lou Christie.
~ EnLIGHTNIN'ment:
The Best Of Lou Christie
He has the surname of a savior,
the Gypsy green eyes of a visionary,
the lyrical sense of a poet
and the five octave voice of an angel.
Lou Christie has it all.
Five Million-sellers.
Thirty-seven chart records.
Ethnicity. Electricity.
Sanctity. Sexuality.
Fantasy. Reality.
The history and mystery of Lou Christie.
~ Beyond The Blue Horizon:
More Of The Best Of Lou Christie
Record Collector Aug 2022
by Bob Stanley
This page is about the Lou Christie Fan Club founded by Harry Young in 1977. Harry Young has contributed to Lou Christie CDs released by ACE, Rhino, Taragon, Varese, RPM, Sequel and Collectables. From 1977 to 1999 the Lou Christie Fan Club published an underground fanzine titled Lightning Strikes The Lou Christie Newsletter (36 issues). In 2009 operations shifted to the Twitter / X account @EgyptianShumba
Other Lou Christie Fan Clubs:
Marti Antionette Nabozny 1962 - 1966
Heidi Hudson 1966 - 1967
Arlene Kramer & Fran Broz 1968
Connie DeNave
Diane Kirkland 1969 - 1971
And there is allegedly another *Fan Club*
but unfortunately Where FakeBook beginneth, there beginneth also the buzzing of the poisonous flies, disfigured (stolen) images and false credits written in liar's ink by one particular poison pen
Howard Stern:
Lou Christie
October 15, 2014
THE SAMBOLA!
INTERNATIONAL DANCE CRAZE
(FROM DAMSELS IN DISTRESS)
Lou Christie, Michael A. Levine & Mark Suozzo, songwriters
(Jeff Young & The World Sambola Chorus)
Official Video:
The Sambola!
International Dance Craze
