Mike Sardina, 55, performed with his wife, Claire, as the singing duo Lightning & Thunder
Shrike!
By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS
July 27, 2006
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Mike Sardina and his wife, Claire, performed as the duo Lightning &
Thunder at festivals and special events. Sardina died Thursday at age 55.
Mike Sardina lived to perform and he found his match - both personally
and professionally - in the woman who became his wife.
Together, they became known as "Lightning & Thunder." He was Lightning
in the local singing duo. Claire, his wife of nearly 12 years, was the
Thunder half of the act.
"We got married at State Fair in 1994, at a special tent they had in
the race track area," Claire said. "We just thought it would be
appropriate to include the fans. There were well over a thousand
people there. We did the wedding between performances."
Michael H. Sardina died Thursday. He was 55.
A week before, he had fallen at home and struck his head, but did not
want to go to a doctor or a hospital. He and his wife performed
Saturday evening - pregame and post-game shows at the Madison Mallards
baseball game - in Madison. Sardina became increasingly ill on the
drive home to Milwaukee.
At the hospital, Sardina was found to have bleeding on the brain, soon
slipping into a coma. Surgery was performed. He never regained
consciousness.
Music was the constant in his life.
"As a teenager, he played the guitar," Claire said.
Sometime after graduation from Pulaski High School, Sardina enlisted
in the U.S. Marines, beginning a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1970.
"I put a band together in 'Nam," he later said, explaining that, one
by one, band members would be lost to the war.
"It was real hard to keep the band together," he said. "Charlie just
wouldn't allow that."
Vietnam also was where he began having trouble with alcohol and drugs.
He returned home to pursue music professionally - including a stint
with the national band "The Esquires" - and to too many years of more
drugs and alcohol.
"I had a future except it was messed up by drugs and alcohol," Sardina
said in a 1983 interview. "That was because I was high all the time."
Sardina went into treatment in 1980, still sober when he died and
proud to have helped other musicians find sobriety.
"So many musicians still think drugs are the way," Sardina once said.
"They look at Jimi Hendrix and think he was great and he did drugs.
They ignore the facts that Jimi Hendrix died from drugs. It's just
really a shame."
In 1987, at the suggestion of a friend, Sardina called Claire and
asked her to audition for his band. Those plans did not work out
immediately and he called again the following year.
Work sounded good to Claire.
"He proposed the name 'Lightning & Thunder,' " she said. "He's the one
who thought of the name."
They met to discuss plans and then he asked her out to a baseball game.
"Listen, you, this is going to be strictly business," Claire told him.
"But by the end of that night, it turned into something more," she
said. "It turned into a love story."
They made a name for themselves, hired for local festivals and special
events in Wisconsin and Illinois. Sardina was a good Neil Diamond
impersonator. Early on, Claire performed mainly as a Patsy Cline act,
later doing more ABBA, Blondie and disco numbers.
Career highlights included an encore with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder in
1995, and other numbers with the bands "Urge Overkill" and "Garbage."
Then, in 1999, tragedy struck.
Claire was in front of their home when she was hit by a car that went
out of control. She lost her left leg below the knee.
Sardina stuck by her, but she became severely depressed.
"I just fell apart," she said. "And I filed for divorce."
Once again, love won out.
"We just couldn't bear to be without each other," Claire said. "We
picked up the pieces."
At their last performance Saturday, they sang their favorite duet,
"You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and a song called "Wonderful, Beautiful."
"He wrote that when he was 13 years old and turned it into a duet for
Lightning & Thunder," she said.
"Ever since she was a little girl, my sister dreamed of singing
professionally and being on stage, and Mike made that dream come true
for her," said Jim Stingl, Journal Sentinel columnist. "He tirelessly
promoted Lightning & Thunder, and he was never happier than when he
was performing in front of a crowd.
"Even now when I hear a Neil Diamond song on the radio, I think, hey,
he sounds like Mike."
Survivors also include daughter Angelina and son Michael Jr.;
stepchildren Rachel and Dana Cartwright; sisters Peggy Lustig and
Carol Pierce; brothers Tony and Donald; nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday at the
Altstadt-Tyborski Ermenc-McLeod Funeral Home, 4800 S. 84th St.,
Greenfield. Visitation will continue from noon Sunday until the
funeral service at 1 p.m.
--
There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we'd all
love one another. - Frank Zappa