Foreigner racked up a formidable number of hit singles.
The lead vocals of Lou Gramm were at the forefront of that string of success which stretched from 1977 into the late 1980s.
Gramm performs 8 p.m. June 17 at Blue Chip Casino, Hotel & Spa in Michigan City.
He cites a 1982 track as an example of a vocal effort that is a special source of pride.
“‘Juke Box Hero’ is good hard rock: I wouldn’t call it metal, but it’s good hard rock, and that’s where I like to be,” Gramm said in a phone interview this month.
At the show in the casino’s Stardust Event Center, Gramm will front a five-member band.
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“Urgent” — a Top 10 hit from 1981 — is on the musical menu.
It ranks as another cut which Gramm considers one of his defining vocal efforts.
“I think ‘Urgent’ is very soulful,” said Gramm, noting the song allows him to utilize his vocal skills in that type of brawny style.
Throughout the course of Foreigner’s heyday, Gramm’s multifaceted tenor guided fare with varied tones up the pop charts.
There were raw and gritty offerings such as “Dirty White Boy,” and dreamy love odes in the vein of “Waiting For a Girl Like You.”
Additionally, primal steaminess was captured in “Hot Blooded.”
All told, Foreigner logged 16 Top 40 hits on Billboard’s mainstream singles chart.
Over the course of two decades, Gramm gained a reputation for having one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most potent voices.
“I put it through hell and back, I think,” he said. “It’s very strong now. I exercise it regularly — warm up with scales and things like that, and no alcohol, no drugs. And that helps keep the rest of me together too. Before I perform, I warm it up to the point where I think it’s ready to perform, like warming up a car.”
Gramm also put his vocal cords to good use as a solo artist, notching a Top 5 tune in 1987 with “Midnight Blue.”
Gramm’s vocal prowess is lauded by Ken Zurek, former vice president and general manager of Hegewisch Records and former owner of Big Time Records in Munster.
“Lou Gramm could be a rocker, but he could do very well on ballads,” Zurek, a Highland resident, said. “He was very strong on ballads. He was very dynamic in his vocal range.”
Many years ago, when Foreigner’s popularity was beginning to grow in the United States, the band made a promotional appearance at a new Hegewisch Records store in Oak Forest, Ill., Zurek recalled.
“The whole band was really nice,” he said.
A onetime promoter and booker of rock shows, Zurek remembers Foreigner as “a fresh, hard-hitting” group that began to make waves nationally in 1977, he said.
“They were an edgy rock ‘n’ roll band,” he said.
Gramm said he feels Foreigner’s contribution to rock ‘n’ roll rests in its affinity for releasing “very well-written songs with a lot of passion in them, whether they’re rockers or ballads.”
Adept at hard-driving, straight-up bangers, Foreigner scored with “Double Vision” (1978) and “Head Games” (1979), while also giving the ’70s the slicing guitar riffs of “Long, Long Way From Home.”
But the band closed out its run of success with the No. 1 adult-contemporary hit “I Don’t Want to Live Without You,” a gentle tune from 1988.
Foreigner’s biggest hit single was the chart-topping “I Want to Know What Love Is,” a 1984 power ballad. When recording of the song was done, representatives of the group’s label, Atlantic Records, “would come down and just give it a listen, and you could see they were really moved,” Gramm recounted.
They voiced their support and optimism over the anthemlike single.
“And we felt good about that,” said Gramm, a 67-year-old resident of Rochester, N.Y.
Gramm is the only original member of Foreigner from its glory days who will be performing at the June 17 Michigan City show.
Gramm said he feels a strong point for Foreigner during those heady times was its ability to entertain on the road.
“I think we were an excellent live band,” the singer-songwriter said. “To my recollection, we used to bring the house down.”
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Bob Kostanczuk is a freelancer writer for the Post-Tribune.
Lou Gramm
Where: Stardust Event Center at Blue Chip Casino, Hotel & Spa, 777 Blue Chip Drive, Michigan City
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $35, $45, $55; 21 and older only