MILAN – Ugly Things Article
When his first single “The Gypsy Cried” was released on the tiny C&C Records label, the artist was shown as “Lou Christie” without his knowledge or permission. He has been quoted as saying: “I was pissed off about it for 20 years. I wanted to keep my name and be a one-named performer, just ‘Lugee’.”
Additionally, Lou Christie wrote most of his own hit songs, along with his songwriting partner Twyla Herbert (and that is quite a story in itself: She was 20 years older than Christie and a classically trained musician who was also a self-proclaimed mystic). As such, he is one of the first singer-songwriters in popular music, a fact that John Lennon has remarked on, among others.
The preceding paragraphs come from an article which I wrote on Milan that is set to appear (in abridged form) in the Fall/Winter 2012 issue of Ugly Things magazine. Milan is among the most enigmatic figures in 1960’s rock music; he recorded under a number of other names – notably the garage rock and psychedelic rock songs he released as the Leather Boy – and also wrote and produced songs for a number of obscure bands. Along the way he worked with several well-known figures in popular music; for instance, he was the songwriter for “How Many Teardrops”, Lou Christie’s follow-up single to his second hit, “Two Faces Have I”. Milan also collaborated with the notorious music mogul Morris Levy of Roulette Records; Artie Kornfeld, the “father of Woodstock”; and Melanie’s husband, manager and producer, Peter Schekeryk.
Budd Granoff produced Milan’s album, I Am What I Am and also wrote the liner notes. He is best known for his work with Chuck Barris in creating legendary game shows like The Gong Show and The Newlywed Game – not to mention the creation of the first television syndication company to distribute these shows to independent TV stations. Along the way, he put on what has been described as the very first telethon, a marathon 1951 television broadcast to raise money for a cardiac hospital that also happened to showcase two of his clients at the time, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Of course, Jerry Lewis would become the most visible presence in the telethon world over the ensuing six decades.
Not even Bomp! Records founder Greg Shaw – who released several of his songs on the albums in the Pebbles Series – was able to find out much of anything about Milan. I took it upon myself to dig up what I could for an article on him for Wikipedia, and once I made contact with his sister Dara Rodell Gould, I was able to get the full scoop. In fact, she is the one who got me to sign up for Facebook. As you might imagine, I am pretty excited about the Ugly Things article – heck, I was plenty stoked when a 2009 retrospective album of Milan’s music, Hell Bent for Leather mentioned my Wikipedia article. But enough about me!
(July 2012)
