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Hugo E. Peretti was an American songwriter and record producer.
Born in New York City, Hugo Peretti began his career as a teenager, playing the trumpet in the Borscht Belt in upstate New York. He graduated to playing with orchestras, then in the 1950s partnered with his cousin Luigi Creatore to form the Hugo & Luigi songwriting team that evolved to producing 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", "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine", "Oh-Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again", and "Secretly".
Two years later, Peretti and Creatore signed a contract with RCA Records where they produced crooner Perry Como. In addition, they produced Sam Cooke and Ray Peterson, and wrote English lyrics for the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", 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 Creatore also wrote the Presley hit single Wild in the Country. He and Creatore left RCA in 1964 to join George David Weiss in writing a musical about the American Civil War. Titled Maggie Flynn, it ran on Broadway in 1968. The family of South African composer Solomon Linda reached a settlement in the lawsuit over his world-famous song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 2006.
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