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Burlsworth Trophy

Sports Dungeon 05-17-2011 Part 2

726 Harrison 04-27-2011 Part 3

Football camp

Quinton Aaron of “The Blindside” talks “Greater” and the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth

FIRST LOOK – “Greater” movie review

Razorbacks Remember Legend With Award

Greater: Official Trailer – Old #2

Brandon Burlsworth

Related posts:

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Interview: Neal McDonough on “Greater”

Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/moviemom/2016/08/interview-neal-mcdonough-greater.html#f3YDzhzSpBQ5zHEd.99

Life’s GREATER Purpose Spotlighted in New Faith-and-Football Film

Neal McDonough (“Arrow”) stars in “Greater,” the true story of Brandon Burlsworth, the greatest walk-on in the history of college football. He plays Burlsworth’s brother Marty, who inspired and supported Brandon’s dream of playing for the Arkansas Razorbacks, and who made it through sheer determination and persistence. McDonough, who has played supervillain Damien Darhk in “Arrow” and “Legends of Tomorrow” and superhero good guy Dum Dum Dugan in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” answered my question about playing a real-life character and why we love movies about sports.

How did growing up in a big Irish family help prepare you for working on movies and television?

I joke sometimes that it was great training for working in ensembles, because you’re so accustomed to having to do something to make yourself stand out when you grow up one of six kids. I suppose the real help it’s been is that it teaches you to be comfortable in crowds and chaos – and movie and TV sets are certainly that.

Your character in “Greater” was more than an older brother to Brandon Burlsworth. Why was that relationship so vital and how is it portrayed in the film?

Marty is so much older than Brandon that he is often mistaken for his dad – which is a running joke in the film and was a running joke in the lives of the real Marty and Brandon. And since their father is troubled and absent for both of most of their lives, Marty is very much a surrogate dad to Brandon. So he has almost two concurrent relationships running with Brandon – the jovial, joking brother side and the more caring and protective parental side. It makes for a very rich and complex character to play.

You’ve been working on some heightened, genre projects based on comic books. How do you recalibrate for returning to a more realistic, fact-based drama?

It’s why they pay us to act, right? Actually, for me, a role like Damien Darhk in “Arrow,” who is such a true comic-book, over-the-top villain, is far easier to play than Marty. There’s less deep characterization in a villain like Darhk – lots of broad brush strokes of villainy – how truly bad can you be, you know? But it’s a lot more rewarding, and more of an exercise in the craft of acting, to take on a character with as many emotions and layers as Marty.

What are some of your favorite football movies? Why are we so drawn to sports stories?

Favorite football movies? Well, “Greater,” of course. (laughs). Sports movies, when done right, spotlight the best about the human spirit and character: doing your best, overcoming the odds, matching your skills with another person’s, developing camaraderie and teamwork and achieving a goal – whether as a team or an individual. Sports are where we test our limits, face our fears, make our dreams come true. That’s what audiences will see in “Greater” – excitement and emotion.

What was the first acting job you got paid for?

I played the pivotal role of “Dockworker No. 2” in Darkman, which I hadn’t thought about until right now, is interesting because it was a superhero movie and, well, had a character with “dark” in his name at the center. Interesting, isn’t it, how you notice all these “coincidences” when you look back over your life and your career – when you’ve tried to follow the path God has laid out for you. Fascinating, and humbling.

What’s the best advice you ever got about acting?

Steven Spielberg told me, “Every good actor is no further than 50 feet from the camera, even in-between rehearsals, between takes.” That’s great advice because If you’re in the orbit of the camera, no further than 50 feet away, if they need you, boom, you’re right there. They don’t have to call to get you out of your trailer. If you’re always right there; that’s a great actor. You learn so much because you see how they do certain lighting; you see how other actors act. For young actors, the more you can stand around or sit there—-even when you’re not shooting-—just sit there on the set and shut up for three hours, you’ll learn more in one day than you’ll ever learn in film school.

What do you want people to learn from the story of Marty and Brandon?

First and foremost, I hope they’re truly entertained. This is a movie of very big ideas and themes but also great fun and humor. There is some excellent, exciting football action in this movie, along with lots of solid family drama. And there’s plenty of humor, too, in Marty’s relationship with Brandon but also as we see Brandon expanding his social skills as he gets more and more accomplished at football.

But I also hope audiences leave encouraged – reminded that when hard times do come, and they will, that God has a purpose in them. And we can actually be blessed through the pain if we follow Him through it.

Burlsworth Trophy

Sports Dungeon 05-17-2011 Part 2

726 Harrison 04-27-2011 Part 3

Football camp

Quinton Aaron of “The Blindside” talks “Greater” and the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth

FIRST LOOK – “Greater” movie review

Razorbacks Remember Legend With Award

Greater: Official Trailer – Old #2

Brandon Burlsworth

Related posts:

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__

Brandon Burlsworth Football Camps

Old game footage and old photographs are a sweet reminder of the unforgettable story of Brandon Burlsworth. A new film set to hit theaters tomorrow chronicles Burlsworth incredible journey of beating the odds to play college football.

The Arkansas Razorbacks joined the team as a walk-on, becoming an All-American, and earning his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree at the same time.

Brandon’s passionate yet painful faith story is now captured in a film called “Greater” which is inspired by the book written about the life of number 77.

“It was a passion project for everyone who was involved,” actor Neal McDonough told CBN News.

McDonough plays Marty, Brandon’s big brother and father figure in the film, and he said he was instantly moved by Brandon’s story.

“Brandon was exactly as the film depicts him,” said McDonough. “Just a saint of a man that had literally nothing going for him as kid and became not just the greatest walk on in college history, but one of the greatest athletes in college history.”

Burlsworth died in a tragic car accident 11 days after being drafted to play with the Indianapolis Colts.

Marty struggles with the loss of his brother and McDonough said reconciling that on camera was a difficult job.

“That journey and the struggle of why does God take someone so great away from us at the worst of times and to have to deal with that and man up and be strong enough for everyone,” he said. “That is a difficult job to do.”

This is a different role for the actor famous for his work in shows like “Arrow” and films like “Red” and “Band of Brothers”.

McDonough said his faith influences the roles that he chooses to play.

“I have gotten into trouble for that at times. People saying you be such a big star if you would have those scenes with women, sex scenes and such,” he said. “When you do a bed scene, you are actually in the bed, if you are having love scenes. It’s physical. And I am just not comfortable with that.”

“When it comes to doing intimate roles in films, I won’t do it because I love my wife so much, and I don’t think that is what God wanted me to do,” he added.

The Brandon Burlsworth Foundation’s “Eyes of a Champion” program

Life’s GREATER Purpose Spotlighted in New Faith-and-Football Film

Burlsworth Trophy

Sports Dungeon 05-17-2011 Part 2

726 Harrison 04-27-2011 Part 3

Football camp

Quinton Aaron of “The Blindside” talks “Greater” and the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth

FIRST LOOK – “Greater” movie review

Razorbacks Remember Legend With Award

Greater: Official Trailer – Old #2

Brandon Burlsworth

Related posts:

___________

__

David Perry interviews legendary poet, artist and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti

http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Lawrence-Ferlinghetti-s-indelible-image-3886925.php

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s indelible image

SUNDAY PROFILE / Lawrence Ferlinghetti

By Julian Guthrie

Updated 3:05 am, Monday, September 24, 2012

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was in his early 30s when he wrote a poem of hope and innocence about a penny candy store in New York and the magic to be found in jellybeans and licorice sticks, about the evanescence of a rainy September afternoon.

Sixty years later, Ferlinghetti has written a new book-length poem, “Time of Useful Consciousness,” where “technocracy” dominates the heart, where corporations rule the people, where man is greedy and badly educated, andWalt Whitman‘s optimism is needed – as time is running out.

Since the 1950s, Ferlinghetti has been a San Francisco institution. He openedCity Lights in North Beach, a renowned bookstore that attracts visitors from across the world. He stood behind the publication of Allen Ginsberg‘s “Howl,” an act of daring that changed the course of publishing in America. He penned dozens of books, published breakthrough works – including the Beat writers, who insisted on oral incantations – and became San Francisco’s first poet laureate and its most lyrical town crier.

“My poetry, including ‘The Time of Useful Consciousness,’ is activism,” Ferlinghetti said, sitting in a cafe in North Beach near his home. “Ecologically and politically, it’s a totally dim prospect.”

The 93-year-old poet spends one day a week at City Lights, and on other days can be found at his painter’s studio in Hunters Point. Painting, he says, is the lighter antidote to his more painstaking poetry. With his keen blue eyes, white beard and snazzy, paint-streaked sneakers, he looks every bit the part of painter, poet and gentleman radical.

“The norm is that when people get older, they get more politically conservative, but it’s been the opposite for me,” Ferlinghetti said with a laugh.

Striving to improve world

Ferlinghetti’s biographer, Bill Morgan, an archivist and bibliographer for Ginsberg, said the San Francisco poet has always been “interested in making things better and calling attention to the crazy things going on.”

“Lawrence is still an activist interested in the politics of our time,” Morgan said. “He’s a really good performer of his poetry. He does not consider himself a Beat poet, but he was a publisher of the Beats. And City Lights is one of the best book stores in the country – and it’s been there for 60 years.”

Barry Gifford, the Bay Area author, screenwriter and poet who was friends with Ginsberg, was introduced to Ferlinghetti’s poetry in high school.

“When I was a kid in high school, I remember someone had ‘A Coney Island of the Mind,’ and it made a real impression,” Gifford said of Ferlinghetti’s book of poetry, which has sold more than 1 million copies. “Lawrence has a way of saying what he needs to say in a style that is immediately comprehensible. He’s always been able to communicate with his poetry better than most.”

Gifford added, “Lawrence’s connection with the Beats is not to be underestimated, but he has made – and continues to make – a lasting contribution to American literature.”

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, N.Y., in March 1919. His father, Carlo Ferlinghetti, died before he was born. His mother, Clemence, overcome by stress, asked a relative to care for Lawrence, the youngest of her five boys. Only later did he reconnect with his family.

Awakened to activism

He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; his master’s at Columbia University, with a thesis on critic John Ruskin and painter J.M.W. Turner; and his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950, where he studied comparative literature and delivered his thesis (in French) on “The City as a Symbol in Modern Poetry.”

He attended the Sorbonne on the GI Bill, having served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy during World War II.

“I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout,” Ferlinghetti said. “I remember I was at my girlfriend’s apartment, and there were these strange publications like the Nation and the New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, ‘Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?’ It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I’d never even heard of conscientious objectors.”

Ferlinghetti came to San Francisco in January 1951, knowing no one and having little money. He walked up Market Street from the Ferry Building, and asked a passer-by for the Bohemian part of town. Soon settled in North Beach, he began listening to KPFA, the free, independent FM radio station that included a weekly segment by Kenneth Rexroth, the poet, essayist and philosophical anarchist.

KQED Spark – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Partnering for City Lights

The idea of City Lights came about by chance.

“I was coming up from my painting studio, and I drove up Columbus Avenue,” Ferlinghetti said. “It was a route I wouldn’t normally take, and I saw a guy putting up a sign where City Lights is now.” Ferlinghetti hopped out of his car and went to say hello.

“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said, ‘I’m starting a paperback bookstore, but I don’t have any money. I’ve got $500.’ I said, ‘I have $500.’ The whole thing took about five minutes. We shook hands, and the store opened in June 1953 as City Lights Pocket Bookshop.”

Ferlinghetti’s partner was Peter Martin, a sociology student at San Francisco State who had been publishing a small magazine called City Lights. Martin was the first to publish the works of Pauline Kael – who was another KPFA contributor and would go on to be a film critic for the New Yorker.

“Peter’s idea was to sell quality paperbacks, which were just coming onto the market,” Ferlinghetti said. “At the time, paperback books weren’t considered real books by the trade. They were just these 25-cent pocketbooks that were merchandized like newspapers on the newsstands, but the newsstand guys didn’t understand what they had.”

Around the same time, Ferlinghetti married Selden Kirby-Smith, who went by “Kirby.” She was the granddaughter of a Civil War general and the daughter of a successful doctor, and she had earned her master’s degree from Columbia. The two met in 1946 aboard a ship en route to France. They were both heading to Paris to study at the Sorbonne.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Timothy Leary

[l to r: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Timothy Leary, at the Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967 January 14], photograph by Gene Anthony, courtesy, .

Dylan & Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti & Burroughs. Lawrence Ferlinghetti …

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born March 24, 1919

[The City Lights in North Dakota Conference, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, sponsored by the UND English Department, was the first of many Beat related conferences recognizing the cultural importance of the Beats. Clockwise from top left: Michael McClure,Gregory Corso, Miriam Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder, Janie McClure, Shig Murao, Curator (name unknown – female), Joanne McClure Curator (name unknown – male),  March 18, 1974. – Photo by D.Sorensen ]

Obscenity trial for ‘Howl’

In 1955, Ferlinghetti went to a poetry reading at the Six Gallery on Fillmore Street to hear Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder,Philip Whalen, Michael McClure and Ginsberg – all introduced by Rexroth. Jack Kerouac also was there but declined to read.

It was Ginsberg’s first public reading of his wild, graphic and shattering poem, “Howl,” which opens with the lines: “I saw the best of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.”

“Allen gave me the manuscript a couple of weeks before the public reading,” Ferlinghetti said. “What a great poet does is let you see the world in a way you’ve never seen it before. That’s what Allen did.”

The day after the reading, Ferlinghetti sent a Western Union telegram to Ginsberg, who was staying in Berkeley. “I wrote, ‘I greet you at the beginning of a great career,’ which is what Emerson wrote to Whitman when he first read ‘The Leaves of Grass.’ I asked, ‘When do we get the manuscript?’ ”

“Howl and Other Poems” was the fourth book in Ferlinghetti’s City Lights’ Pocket Poets Series, and featured an introduction by William Carlos Williams. In 1957, hundreds of copies of the book were seized by U.S. customs officials – who stated, “You wouldn’t want your children to come across it” – and Ferlinghetti was charged with obscenity in a trial that drew international attention.

“We had submitted the manuscript to the ACLU ahead of time, asking if they would defend us if we were busted,” Ferlinghetti said. “They committed themselves ahead of time. Of course, when the trial began, I was young and stupid and thought a few months in jail would be OK; I’d have a lot of time to read.”

Free flow of literature

Ferlinghetti won that year, when the Municipal Court judge ruled that the poem couldn’t be deemed obscene because it had “redeeming social significance.”

“That established us as an independent bookstore,” Ferlinghetti said. “And after that, the floodgates were open. Grove Press – which spent a lot of money on the trial – was able to publish ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and Henry Miller’s books and so on.” City Lights also was known for carrying the first gay, lesbian and transgender publications.

While many of his writers were known for drug and alcohol use – he once lent his Big Sur cabin to Kerouac to dry out – Ferlinghetti always made it home for dinner.

“My mother was very protective in terms of who we had over at the house,” said daughter Julie Ferlinghetti Susser, who now lives in Tennessee. “We had Gregory Corso to our house, and he once tried to shoot up. He was never allowed back. My mother did really like Kerouac. Ginsberg would come over whenever he was in town, and my mother tolerated him. He was never interested in what women had to say.”

Immediacy of painting

Throughout her childhood, Susser remembers something else: “I would sit by the door every night, waiting for my dad. … He was home every day by 5:30 or 6. I remember I begged and pleaded for a pony, and my dad got me one. I saw him as a businessman who went to work and came home at the same time. He always made things fun.”

The Ferlinghettis, who divorced in 1973 but remained close, also had a son, Lorenzo, who lives in Bolinas and has two children. Kirby Ferlinghetti died this year and is buried in their family plot in Bolinas.

These days, the poet is gravitating to painting. George Krevsky, Ferlinghetti’s longtime gallerist, said, “When I first met Lawrence, I said, ‘I’ve met two great poets – you and Robert Frost,’ and he said, ‘You should see my paintings.’ ”

For Ferlinghetti, painting is a “lyrical escape,” a way to express himself that has more immediacy than his poems.

“It’s easier to get high doing a painting,” he said, walking home from the North Beach cafe. “For one thing, it’s more instantaneous. A book – this new book of mine – is two years of work. Whereas a painting, I might have one in a day. I feel like I can take a lot of chances in painting.”

Ferlinghetti’s outlook, like his poetry and like his paintings, moves from dark to light, from foreboding to hopeful. He looks at poems such as “The Pennycandystore” as embodying a time of innocence for himself, and America.

“I wrote that in the early ’50s,” he said of the candy store poem. “America was full of hope.”

Sending a lifeline to culture

The title of his new work, “Time of Useful Consciousness,” to be released in October, comes from an aeronautical term denoting the time between when one loses oxygen and when one passes out, the moments when it’s still possible to save your life.

“It’s a statement about where culture is,” Ferlinghetti said. Smiling, his blue eyes taking in the sunshine in North Beach, he added, “I’m trying to be an optimist.”

Julian Guthrie is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jguthrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JulianGuthrie

Good article on Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

August - October 1999
Lawrence Ferlinghetti The Painter 1989 oil on canvas 36 1/2 x 40 in. CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW	LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI just returned from three weeks in Europe. One of his stops was in Florence for a book signing and poetry reading at City Lights Italia, a book store named after the one he had co-founded in San Francisco in 1952, but not otherwise connected with it. A man there walked up to him, “and he handed me a thousand dollars in American money. I said, ‘Well, what’s that for?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll give you 2000 more if you’ll do ten designs relating to Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s his 500th anniversary, and then we’re going to have an exhibition. We’ve asked 70 artists around the world to do this, and the exhibition will be in Milan sometime around 2000.'” Turned out the man was Francesco Conz, a collector who had been a primary funder of the Fluxus movement in Europe. He also invited Ferlinghetti to his home in Verona, a four story building filled with surrealist and Fluxus art by the likes of Dali, Joseph Cornell, and André Breton.When Ferlinghetti returned to where he was staying, he took a supplement from the Sunday edition of La Repubblica-“sort of an illustrated history of art, 48 pages, saddle stitched. There was an illustration of Monet, and one of Gauguin-it went back centuries.” He chose several pages, and in French, English, or Italian wrote “‘Leonardo was here’-he had influenced all these artists. And on a couple of illustrations I put, ‘Leonardo was here’ with a question mark. And things like that. Then I did a little bit of collage on them, and that was it. I mounted them on story boards and sent them to him and he sent me $2000 more.” One of his reasons for going to Italy was to select the final versions of glass plates that had been commissioned by a hotel in Venice and that were being produced by “the top maestro on the famous glass-making island of Murano. I was in his factory for two days. I had sent him the designs [in black and white] several months ago, and they produced some trial plates, which then I chose among. . . . I chose two colors, two of the designs. They did them in cobalt blue on very light transparent blue glass, and the other two are going to be on yellow ochre. Basically, the design was Auroboro, the snake eating its own tail, which fits onto a plate very nicely. Did several variations of that. Now they’re going to produce a limited edition.” A week before he went to Italy, he attended the opening of his solo show at Dominican College in San Rafael CA. Curated by Diane Roby, it consisted of about a dozen paintings on canvas or burlap, and a similar number of drawings, lithographs, and other works on paper. The paintings ranged from about 17×13½” to 68×72″, and most of them referred directly or indirectly to such personages as El Greco, Freud, Ezra Pound, Magritte, Picasso, Van Gogh, or Motherwell. The works on paper included Serpent – Bird, a seven-panel suite of drawings in sumi-e ink on Japanese paper; done in Big Sur in 1997; it shows a serpent turning into a bird. There were also about 15 books, including such things as his most recent novel, a book of his drawings of the figure, When I Look at Pictures (images and poetry), as well as a number of broadsides.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Liberty Series #6 1991 oil on canvas 50 x 56 in. CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW

Ferlinghetti started painting in 1948 while he was in Paris writing poetry and novels and preparing to get his doctorate in comparative poetry from the Sorbonne. “A guy I was rooming with left his painting equipment behind when he went home, so I picked it up and gave it a try.” He soon became serious about painting and began to attend drawing sessions to work from the figure (first at the open studio of theAcadémie Julien), a practice he continues to this day.Before the show, he had been collaborating on a series of pieces with Christopher Felver, who created photos of himself in various stages of clown makeup and which Ferlinghetti then wrote on. “On one of them I wrote, ‘I am not a clown.'” They hope to publish the series of 16 pieces in the near future.

Ferlinghetti / Felver I Am Not a Clown 1999 mixed media CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW

Last October, Gibbs Smith publishedFerlinghetti Portrait, a book of Felver’s photographs that also contains the subject’s long poem “Autobiography.” The shots include several of the painter in his studio, at City Lights, at Big Sur, and about 100 others. A documentary, also by Felver, The Coney Island of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was shown last fall at the Mill Valley Film Festival at the Roxie in SF, and on PBS, where it will be shown again.Ferlinghetti’s work can be seen at the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco (415-397-9748) and at the Molly Barnes Gallery in Santa Monica (310-395-4404). San Francisco CA, 07.28.99

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MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 1

Top 10 Foreigner Songs

Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

Foreigner‘s lone remaining founding member, guitarist Mick Jones, has been at the helm of the legendary American rock group since 1976. But if you’ve seen the band lately, it seems like they’re just getting started, with Jones putting together a turbo-charged version of the group, which has been fronted by Kelly Hansen since 2005. But even though 2009’s Can’t Slow Down proved that they still had the goods to make a damn fine Foreigner album, it’s their chart-reigning period from 1977-84 with Lou Gramm as the lead singer, that make up the songs on our list of the Top 10 Foreigner Songs.

Foreigner’s Lou Gramm; Christianity & Adversity

Let’s talk about the conversion of a rockstar. Lou Gramm spent 26 years as the front man of the famous rock band “Foreigner”. He is the voice behind the great classics “I wanna know what love is” (1984) and “Waiting for a girl like you” (1981), two of the most succesful singles in the 80’s, which respectively ranked the #1 and #2 in the chart music position all around the world.

But there’s more than meets the eye, and not everyhting was sucess for this amazing singer. As years went by, his life would experince ups and downs, but more deeply than many of us. It’s so true that in his life “there’s been heartache and pain“, but there’s also been hope and faith that he eventually found in Christianity.

This time, I’m sharing the transcription of a conversation that Scott Ross from CBN held in an interview with Lou Gramm, in which he shares the experiences that changed him radically. He openly talks about his struggles, and he speaks sincerely about his feelings, telling us how he got this new faith that helped him to overcame the most difficult and troubled times of his life.

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Scott: At a point of your life, when you were extremely succesful, did you bind to the whole rock n’roll scene… you know, sex, drugs and rock n’roll? Were you living that stuff?

Lou Gramm: “Yes, I was… all of it. Thought I grew up in a good solid family background, I honestly felt that drugs and alcohol were changing me into a person ― or had changed me into a person ― that I didn’t recognize anymore”.

Scott: How did that happen?

Lou Gramm: “I think it was more like when I came to New York. It was prevalent. And most of the guys of the band kept different hours. I was used to be operating in the morning and in bed by midnight. When we would record, a lot of times we would begin recording at about 5 or near 6 pm, and work until 4 or 5 of the next morning. At that time my sensibilities were not clear anymore, and just would begin to… be one of the guys.”

Scott: How were you feeling?

Lou Gramm: “I could feel myself changing inside in a negative way. It was just party after party and it became very habitual. When I tried to stop, I was very surprised that what was fun before, became something that I absolutely needed, and at that point I knew that it was way past the recreational and I began to really dislike the person that I had become.” 

 

Scott: Did you had all the trappings of success and what you wanted?

Lou Gramm: “What I thought I needed. And I needed more of the same.”

Scott: More success?

Lou Gramm: “And everyhting I was in.”

 

Scott: So how did you finally realize that this reality wasn’t really for you…?

Foreigner performed in the Madison Square Garden, at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary a 13-hours New York concert on May 14, 1988.

Lou: “I think it was a night after we had played in Madison Square Garden and I lived about sixty miles at north in Manhattan and I was not in the condition to drive myself home.

Scott: You were high?

Lou [nodding his head]: “At the end of an afterparty, after a showparty, and I knew my wife and children would be expecting me, but, at number one, I could’t drive myself, nor did I wanna have them see me like that. So I stayed the night in Manhattan and grappled with the person I had become.” 

Scott: What did you see?

 

Lou: “Something that I didn’t like, I didn’t like and didn’t respect and I saw the possibility of my own demise. It was in this huge, posh hotel room that I got down on my knees asking for God’s help to heal me and help me to get rid myself of this horrible addiction. I just started praying, because I knew there wasn’t anybody in the world that could help me.” 

Scott: Did you know how to pray?

 

Lou: “I think I just started talking to God, it wasn’t necessary a prayer in a pre-fabicated form. It was a conversation.” 

Scott: Saying…?

Lou Gramm: “That I didn’t want to be in this position and that I really believed that that lifestyle had the better of me and that I couldn’t walk away from it on my own, that I needed it, more than it needed me; and I prayed for the strenght and the sense to break the chains.”

The Hazelden Foundation in Minessota

Scott: What happened?

Lou: “The next morning I called a place that a friend have told me about, called ‘Hazelden’ in Minnesota, and went to rehab. I didn’t know for what was it but it was a good facility and there was a pastor as part of the rehab to re-connect with God. That’s where I became a Christian. I received Jesus that moment.”

Scott: Did you prayed, “Jesus Christ, come into my life”?

Lou: “Yes, I was asked if I was sure about it. I definitely did it because that’s what I wanted for a long time and it was an option that He was offering to me.”

Scott: Did you tell your bandmates?

Lou: “Not right away, but when I returned in the next tour months later, nothing in the band had changed. They said they were all thrilled that I had cleaned myself up. After a show, as usual, we were driving on the bus to the next city, and the cocaine lines and the joints came out, and I let them know that I wouldn’t be doing that with them anymore.”

Scott: And the response was?

Lou: “ ―‘What in the world’s wrong with you?’―”

Scott: About your relationship with Jesus, how did your bandmates received that?

 

Lou: “Most of them were pretty angry, because making the desition changed me from the old. It kept for, I’m saying, about another seven or eight years, but there were more and more breaks between tours and the next album, in which I was heavily involved in the melody and the lyrics, started having inferences to God.”

 

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In 1990, Lou had departed from the band (which is one of the “breaks between” tours he talks about). Later he rejoined and in the next Foreigner album, “Mr. Moonlight”, he clearly expressed some glimpses of a new faith who was putting down roots in his music composition:

An excerpt from the song “I Keep Hoping“:

Lou: “Some told that it was so big that they knew they couldn’t operate, other said that it’d be extremely difficult and they didn’t hope a lot of hope of success. I went back to home, thinking that I was going to die. 

Lou’s faith in God, not only has endured after his battle with the brain tumour and his troubled times; It also has kept him hopeful, and it has been growing as a mustard tree, even to the extent that he has decided to dedicate an essential part of his carreer to compose praises to The Lord

Lou remained with Foreigner for years, but he finally parted ways in 2003. Since leaving Foreigner, Gramm’s health would continue to improve. He has lost half the weight he gained after the operation, and in 2009, he decided to start a new Christian musical project called “The Lou Gramm Band”.

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During the late and early decade 2000, Lou has been performing Foreigner songs with his new band.

Though it has not became famous in the market due to the lack of advertising, his Christian music album remains as one of the most powerful testimonies of his commitment and faith.

The God-given talent of this rock-legend is very strong and alive, and his music continues to be promising. With electric guitars, rhythmic drumming, fresh melodies, complex guitar solos, keyboard accompaniment, soothing backing vocals, and sense of conviction in the high-pitched voice behind; the songs in the album “The Lou Gramma Band” is conveys high-quality music, great compositions, and powerful Christian messages. Take the lyrics of this, his latest album, into account:

In “You Saved Me“, Lou recapitulates the moment of his conversion:

“With my feet firmly planted on the shores of sin

I was lost, and afraid

For into the sorrow I was livin’ in

I felt down, and I prayed

I found trouble, and sorrow

had taken hold on me

Trouble and anguish

Please deliver me!

YOU saved me!

I was all alone, and the time was right

YOU saved me!

Shine the light of the day in the darkest night

YOU saved me!

I was all alone, and the time was right

YOU saved me!

I can close my eyes, but I still see the light

Free ourselves from who we are

I can’t do it alone

I let you know how I feel

…

I never lose heart

I pray for, my Lord, to give me hope 

Cos’ dark days and winding roads

It’s all I’ve known

YOU saved me!

I was all alone, and the time was right

YOU saved me!

Shine the light of the day in the darkest night

YOU saved me!

I was all alone, and the time was right

YOU saved me!

I can close my eyes, but I still see the light

and when I lost myself

You took my hand

I found trouble, and sorrow

had taken hold on me

Trouble, and anguish

Please, deliver me!

…

I live by my faith

my faith

Now I call upon my Lord

To save me

To save me”

In “Willing To Forgive”  (a powerful, precious and inspiring song!), Lou celebrates God’s forviness:

“Called me out from my darkness, to learn the secrets of my soul

Uncertain of my first step, I’ve gotta search until I know

 

In my desperation, it’s the life that I have lived

I can feel my vindication, but You’re willing to forgive!

 

You’re willing to forgive! 
You’re willing to forgive! 

You’re willing to forgive! 

 

Rise up and follow, my faith is not in vain!

In my time of reflection, please be standing in the rain

 

You give understanding!
And I get what I deserve!

Oh LORD!
It’s YOU!
that I serve!

 

You’re willing to forgive! 
You’re willing to forgive! 

You’re willing to forgive! 

In “I Wanna Testify”, Lou raises up his voice saying that “he just want to testify” what God’s love has made in his life:

“Friends, inquisitive friends, are asking what’s come over me

 A change, there’s been a change, it‘s so plain for everyone to see

 

 Love won’t get on me and it took me by surprise

 Happiness is all around me

 You can even see it in my eyes, 

yeah, yeah, yeah

 

 I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me!

 I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me,

 yeah, yeah, yeah!

 

 It might be… a mighty long way 

a mighty long way, a mighty long way

 

 Once I was a halo man, and with your lonely heart it dwell

 The love came sneaking up on me, and brought a light to an empty shell

 

 Well, I heard so many times before that love can’t be so bad

 I just got to tell you now!

 That it’s the best LOVE I’ve ever had, 

hey, yeah, yeah!

 

I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me!

I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me!

 yeah, yeah, yeah!

 

hmmm… Precious!

 sure been precious to me!

hhhhmmm… Precious! 

sure been precious to me,
yeah, yeah, yeah!

 

 I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me!

 I just wanna testify what Your love has done for me!

 yeah, yeah, yeah!

In “Made to be broken” (a very vigorous song), Lou declares

“I’m a man with a mission, in the very heart of darkness

at the edge of existance…

I’ve got a heart, that’s made to be broken

The harder I try, to hold on to my Lord
Oh yeah!…

You gave me resistance…
Can we still make from his to be
at the edge of existance…

I’ve got a heart, that’s made to be broken

The harder I try, to hold on to my Lord

I’ve got a heart, that’s made to be broken

The harder I try, to hold on to my Lord

I cast all my chains
until nothing remains
Only my Faith in You Lord
Now You know where I’ve been
Lost in the every end
But it’s all in Your hands, my Lord…”

The album also includes an excellent and sweet version of Billy Preston’s “That’s The Way God Planned It“, in which Lou sings at the top of his lungs and with a strong voice:

“Why can’t we be humble, like the good Lord said?

 He promised to exalt us! for love is the way!

 

 How men be so greedy when there’s so much left?

 All things are God given! and they all have been blessed!

 

 That’s the way!
God planned it!

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be!
Didn’t He?

 

 Well, that’s the way!
God planned it

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be!
for you and me!

 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

 

Let not your heart be troubled,

 Let mourning sobbing cease;

Learn to help one another!

 And live in perfect peace!

 

 If we just be humble, like the Good Lord said!

 He promised to exalt us, for LOVE is the way!

 

That’s the way!
God planned it!

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be!
doesn’t He?

 

 You better believe me!: that’s the way!
God planned it!

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be,
for you and me

 

that’s the way, all right, 

come on! come on! come on!

 

I hope you get this message! 
and where you won’t others will

 You don’t understand me, but I’ll love you still!

 

 That’s the way!
God planned it!

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be!

 You better believe me!: that’s the way!
God planned it!

 That’s the way!
God wants it to be!

In “Baptized by Fire” (a very rockish song), Lou sings:

“All the things I cannot see, when no one is watching me
I caught site Heaven, and the streets of Gold

It’s gonna take some time, it won’t happen over night;

but the hearts of darkness, will appear in plain sight, plain sight!

The voice of my prayers…!
He can hear me anywhere!

Baptized by fire,
caught up on this high wire

Now feel my blood run cold,
Oh Lord heal my wounded soul!

…

There will be no dispair!
He can hear me anywhere!”

In “Redeemer” (another rockish song)

“I don’t look at things the way I used to

 My whole desires have lost their gains

 Through the doorway of love

 There’s a threshold of pain

 

Redeemer, gotta get it in the light

 Redeemer, now You better put yourself in the fight”

In “Rattle Yer Bones”, he shouts:

“Something’s missing in our day

I’ve got a heart and a spirit

…

The circumstances out of control

I was a fugitive, a vagabond,

and I walked this salty earth

I’m not a held slave of this world

I’ve got to get the strength that I need

 

Rattle Yer Bones

Walk on stone

…

 

I‘ve been redeemed,

this new life in me

and you will see The Truth

when You look in His eyes

 

Rattle Yer Bones

Walk on stone…

Rattle Yer Bones

Seven times a day“

 

In “Single Vision”, Lou call his nation to turn to God again:

“Is the way of this cold world
I keep my distance

and the days full of darkness

I give my resistance

 

Any kept secret, will come to light

Just because I feel it, It don’t make it right

But I know who’ll be there!

 

In the light of a single vision

One nation under God

In the light of a single vision

In the visible,

Our country will have gone

Turn my eyes from the darkness

and those that seek my soul

Let, my Lord, mighty Truth

Shine, light, more than than gold

 

In my desperation, and the end of my pride

even if it’s painful, it’s always on my side

And I know You’ll be there

In the light of a single vision

One nation under God

In the light of a single vision

In the visible, 

Our country will have gone…

 

Don’t take our Lord from the classrooms

Please let us say our prayers of thanks

And when we pledge to our country

I know that without Him

we will never be free

 

In the light of a single vision

One nation under God

In the light of a single vision

In the visible,

Our country will have gone“

 

In the track “Our Lord Never Fails“, Lou sings about God’s fidelity:

“Our Lord never fails,

He heals the broken hearted

Our Lord never fails

now that’s His only way 

Our Lord never fails,

He’s Truth and He’s wisdom,

Our Lord never fails

Lights up our darkest day

 

My heart is wounded withn me,

Love is just beyond my reach

I come out from the darkness

I hear the words that You teach

 

Our Lord never fails,

He heals the broken hearted

Our Lord never fails

now that’s His only way 

Our Lord never fails,

He’s Truth and He’s wisdom,

Our Lord never fails

Lights up our darkest day

 

Our Lord never fails,

He will liberate your soul

Our Lord never fails

If you walk by faith alone,

Our Lord never fails

He’s got this single vision,

Our Lord never fails

Our Lord never fails“

 

Lou composed a hard-rock worship song called “So Great!”:

“SO great, SO great, is Our LORD!

SO great, SO great, is Our LORD!

 

The fire in my heart, is already kindled and burning

I take hold of His words, that God sends me,
His truth and His mercy!

 

SO great, SO great, is Our LORD!

SO great, SO great, is Our LORD!
(My faith is my Lord)

 

When there is no way, to satisfy the longing of my soul

Well, it’s then that I pray to my Lord

my rock and my fortress!

 

…Well I’ve made my decision
And that’s all I need!

(Just then, after a guitar solo in the same song,
a chorus of children voices retake verses from Foreigner’s song “Real World“):

…lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

and If I die before I wakeI pray The LORD my soul to take

I pray The LORD my soul to take!

 

SO great, SO great! SO great is Our LORD!

SO great, SO great! SO great is Our LORD!
My LORD!…”

In an interview on july 2013, Lou remembers the time where he passed through health problem. He reflects and says it was a nightmare, but one that “I guess it was in God’s time that he was gonna bring me some glimpse of normalcy and little peace in my llife, you know, and the fog did lifted and I started thinking a lot clear and I actually that I was getting better. ” He discusses how it was an honor to be inducted to the “Songwriters Hall of Fame” in 2013, and the possibility of performing again together with Mick Jones; something that –at this time– have already happened a couple of times. Wearing a cross on his neck, he told with a smile that he is now on his third marriage and his wife is expecting.

May God bless Lou and his family,

We love you much Lou!

Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

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