Luigi Creatore, songwriter and record producer, Died at 93

  Music, Writers

Luigi Federico Creatore was born on December 21, 1921, and died on December 13, 2015.

He was an American songwriter and record producer.

Luigi was born in New York City in 1921.

From a musical family, Luigi began his career as a writer.

After serving with the United States military during World War II, in the 1950s, Luigi became a writer then partnered with his cousin Hugo Peretti to form the song-writing team of Hugo & Luigi that also produced records.

In 1957, they bought into Roulette Records where they both wrote songs for various artists such as Valerie Carr and produced major hits for Jimmie Rodgers, including “Honeycomb” (Billboard # 1) and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” (Billboard # 3), and “Oh-Oh, I’m Falling in Love Again” and “Secretly”.

Two years later, Luigi and Peretti signed a deal with RCA Victor where they produced Perry Como.

In addition, they produced Sam Cooke and Ray Peterson and wrote English lyrics for the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (with the original bulk of the song written by Solomon Linda), producing the hit for The Tokens.

With George David Weiss they co-wrote “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for RCA’s mega-star, Elvis Presley.

Peretti and Luigi also wrote the Presley hit single Wild in the Country.

He and Peretti left RCA in 1964 to join Weiss in writing a musical about the American Civil War.

Titled Maggie Flynn (starring Shirley Jones) it briefly ran on Broadway in 1968.

Luigi Federico Creatore passed away at the age of 93 from complications of pneumonia on December 13, 2015 in Boca Raton, Florida.