Lou Gramm

Louis Andrew Grammatico (born May 2, 1950), known professionally as Lou Gramm, is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known as co-founder and original frontman 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.

Gramm is considered among the greatest and most successful rock vocalists of his generation. He co-wrote most of Foreigner's hits with bandmate Mick Jones. Together, they are inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame class of 2013. In 2024, Gramm was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Foreigner.

Gramm was born on May 2, 1950, in Rochester, New York, the son of Nikki (born Masetta), a singer, and Bennie Grammatico, a band leader and trumpeter. Gramm is of Italian descent. 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" (1974). Soon after this initial bit of success, Black Sheep signed with Capitol Records, releasing two albums in succession: Black Sheep (1975) and Encouraging Words (late 1975). 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 (S/T). 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.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.