Lou Johnson (singer)

Lou Johnson
Born	1941 (age 75–76) Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Genres	Soul
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Associated acts	Burt Bacharach Hal David

Lou Johnson (born 1941 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American soul singer and pianist who was active as a recording artist in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Coming from a musical family, he started singing in gospel choirs in his teens, before studying music at Brooklyn College. He learned keyboards and percussion, forming a gospel group, the Zionettes, who recorded for Simpson Records and achieved some local success. Johnson then formed a secular vocal group, the Coanjos, with Tresia Cleveland and Ann Gissendammer, recording "Dance the Boomerang" before Cleveland and Gissendammer left to become the Soul Sisters.

In 1962, Johnson signed as a solo singer with Bigtop Records, run by the Hill & Range music publishing company in the Brill Building. There, he met the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who wrote Johnson's first single, "If I Never Get to Love You". Neither that song nor his second record, "You Better Let Him Go", were hits, but his third single, "Reach Out for Me", also written by Bacharach and David and this time produced by Bacharach, reached # 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1963. However, as it rose up the charts, the record company collapsed so limiting the record's success.

Johnson signed to its successor label, Big Hill, and continued to record Bacharach and David songs. In 1964, his original version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", with backing vocals by Doris Troy, Dee Dee Warwick, and Cissy Houston, reached # 49 in the US charts. In the United Kingdom, a cover version by English singer Sandie Shaw rose to number one on the British singles chart.

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