The story of Milwaukee's singing couple, Lightning & Thunder, with its lovers who followed their dream to the brass ring only to have it snatched away by cruel fate, has all the makings of a Hollywood tragedy. Needless to add, Hollywood would have tacked on a happy ending unlike the real one captured in Greg Kohs' oddball documentary, Song Sung Blue (out on DVD). And the brass ring of local stardom in their hometown would have been written out of the Hollywood script. Las Vegas (or at least Los Angeles) would have been the setting.
Full disclosure: I was probably the first person to write about Mike Sardina (a.k.a. Lightning), possibly the first critic to weigh in on the Lightning & Thunder phenomenon, and was thanked in the documentary's credits. I first encountered Sardina in 1980, a decade before his transmogrification into an avatar of Neil Diamond. In those days he was just a struggling local musician notable for his feverish intensity. He had been in bands for years already, including a stint with the Esquires, the Cream City soul group that scored one hit in the '60s, "Get on Up." He had yet to meet Claire (a.k.a. Thunder) and conceive his Big Idea of embodying the star behind "Sweet Caroline." Thunder would be his partner on the bandstand, with the spotlight on her during the Patsy Cline numbers.
As hinted in Song Sung Blue, the fame of Lightning & Thunder didn't travel far beyond the Milwaukee County line. Kohs incorporates concert footage from a Chicago show where they were booed offstage. But at home, Lightning's fervid determination caught the attention of the media and music promoters. And yes, the couple had strong voices. They were big in Milwaukee with an annual run at the Wisconsin State Fair along with club dates. Their brush with the larger universe of stardom occurred when Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder brought them onstage at Summerfest to sing "Forever in Blue Jeans."
And then it all unraveled. In a freak accident, a car careened onto the front yard of L&T's modest South Side home, severing part of Thunder's leg. The show went on, complete with a prosthetic limb, but Lightning's persistent references to the accident were a bummer and the gigs waned along with their audience. Lightning was not always his own best ally. After being diagnosed with a heart troubles, he decided to take up smoking. He died from the condition.
Song Sung Blue doesn't come to grips with why Lightning & Thunder were as locally popular as they became in the early 1990s. Innocent of postmodern irony, the duo never understood that for a segment of their audience, they were an unintended parodyfunny because they were like an old school Vegas act with the seams showing. But they sang well and their routine coincided with the peak of Baby Boom tribute acts. Many Milwaukeeans really loved to hear them execute the old hits. And while Lightning & Thunder never enjoyed the lavish budget of a real Neil Diamond concert, the price of admission was much lower"reasonable" as Milwaukeeans say when counting their quarters. Kohs' telling of their story has garnered many awards on the film festival circuit, giving their career an afterlife wider in scope than they were able to accomplish while together.
