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| You'll never find another singer like him (Entertainment) |
| | Poster: CS | Posting Date: 2006-01-07 | |
January 7, 2006 BY DAVE HOEKSTRA There wasn't a song Lou Rawls couldn't sing. The Chicago native grew up in the church and harmonized gospel with Sam Cooke while attending Dunbar High School. He sang the blues during the early 1960s, then moved on to jazz and later the pop-soul of 1978's "Lady Love," one of his biggest hits. Chicago is a warm melting pot, and Mr. Rawls was its voice of cool. Mr. Rawls died Friday of complications from brain and lung cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 72. "I'll give you a Sinatraism about Lou," said Chicago rhythm and blues great Jerry Butler. "There's more [success] than he expected, but probably not as much as he deserved. He was a tremendous singer but he didn't have a bunch of hit recordings. Yet, every time he had a hit, it took him to a new musical plateau." Mr. Rawls sold 40 million albums and won three Grammys in a career that spanned four decades. ESSENTIAL LOU Lou Rawls recorded more than 70 albums in his career. You can't go wrong with these high five: 1. "Lou Rawls Live!" (Capitol, 1966) -- "The Natural Man" is at the top of his game in the first live album of his career. His four-octave range is stunning on "In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down" and Count Basie's "Goin' to Chicago Blues." Rawls is backed by ace Los Angeles session men such as drummer Earl Palmer, guitarist Herb Ellis and pianist Tommy Strode, who is clearly Rawls' foil. Rawls pays homage to Chicago by covering Oscar Brown Jr.'s "World of Trouble" and deploying staccato Brown rhythms to "Southside Blues (Monologue)," which leads into the legendary "Tobacco Road." 2. "Portrait of the Blues" (Capitol, 1992) -- By now, tastemakers had dismissed Rawls through his disco-era "Lady Love" hits, but "Portrait of the Blues" is framed by the integrity of his early Capitol years. Junior Wells guests on Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me to Do," and Buddy Guy sits in on Willie Dixon's "My Babe." The evocative horn arrangements are courtesy of the great Hank Crawford. 3. "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing: The Silk and Soul of Lou Rawls" (EMI, 1997) -- This "Heart of Soul" compilation series includes the title track, "Dead End Street (Parts 1, 2)" the ribald "Red Top" and an engaging cover of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night." 4. "Soulin' " (Capitol, 1966) -- Rawls' breakthrough album includes "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" and an on-the-mark version of "Autumn Leaves," which surely endeared him to fan Frank Sinatra. Although the project was titled "Soulin'," this record has more jazz textures than blues or soul. 5. "All Things in Time" (Philadelphia International, 1976) -- Lou's debut with the Gamble-Huff team at Philly International delivered the biggest hit of his career; "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine." He had a follow-up hit with "Groovy People," and both songs still hold up today. The lush disco arrangements framed Rawls' baritone, which echoes the swing of his hero Joe Williams. Dave Hoekstra
Started singing doo-wop Mr. Rawls was reared by his grandmother Eliza Rawls in the shadow of the original Regal Theater, 47th and King Drive. He was part of the Dirty Thirties, a group of young performers who sang doo-wop on the corner of 38th and State. Besides Mr. Rawls, Dirty Thirties alumni included Cooke, Pervis Staples of the Staple Singers and Johnnie Taylor. Mr. Rawls attended Greater Mount Olivet Church at 47th and Prairie. "In church there is a rhythm that is like a roller coaster," Mr. Rawls told me during a 2002 conversation at a downtown hotel. "You come out, hit them hard, pick them up, level them off and take them a little ways on the smooth side. Then you build again going out. It is the same principle in a club or auditorium." Mr. Rawls' grandmother died when he was in his teens. He joined the National Guard and was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving two years as a paratrooper. Upon his discharge, Mr. Rawls rejoined Cooke in the Pilgrim Travelers gospel quartet. During a 1958 tour, the group's Cadillac collided with a truck in rural Arkansas. Driver Eddie Cunningham was killed, Cooke suffered minor injuries and Mr. Rawls suffered a concussion. He was pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to a Memphis hospital and remained in a coma for 51/2 days. It took Mr. Rawls almost a year to recover from his injuries. Mr. Rawls was to reunite with Cooke one more time, singing the welcoming background on Cooke's 1962 hit "Bring It On Home to Me." The Pilgrim Travelers broke up in 1959 in Los Angeles, and Mr. Rawls embarked on a solo career in 1960 by appearing at small Hollywood clubs. One, the Pandora's Box, was in the shadow of the Capitol Records tower, and Mr. Rawls was signed to the label in 1961. His Chicago compatriot Nat "King" Cole was in the Capitol house, but where Cole was smooth and silky, Mr. Rawls' Capitol sides were rough and tumble, personifying what the singer called "The Hawk" that cut through Chicago on the coldest of winter days. "Louis had a voice you couldn't measure," Chicago gospel-soul legend Mavis Staples said Friday. "And his range? He had that alto bass. ..." At that point Staples dropped a register to sing the opening words of Rawls' biggest hit, "You'll never find ..." Mid-'60s hitmaker "Tobacco Road" and "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" were hits for Mr. Rawls at Capitol, but the urban raps on "Lou Rawls Live!" (1966) attracted a new generation of listeners such as Isaac Hayes and Gil Scott-Heron. In 1967, Mr. Rawls won his first Grammy for best rhythm and blues vocal performance on the Chicago-centric "Dead End Street," arranged and conducted by jazz saxophonist Benny Carter. In the 1970s, Mr. Rawls' career took another stylistic detour when he signed with Philadelphia International. The label's disco hitmaking team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote "Lady Love," "Groovy People" and "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine." "His many styles were all about exposure," Chicago soul singer Otis Clay said Friday. "When we were growing up in Chicago, we heard Muddy Waters, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Nat Cole on the same radio station." Mr. Rawls was at ease in the spotlight. He played a cabdriver in the hit film "Leaving Las Vegas," he appeared as himself in "Blues Brothers 2000" and he was cast as R&B singer Lloyd Price's manager in "The Don King Story: Only in America." His acting career began when he had a bit part in the popular 1960s television series "77 Sunset Strip," and in the 1970s he became one of the first African-American cowboys in the TV series "Big Valley." Mr. Rawls used his crossover appeal for charity efforts. In 1979 he established the Lou Rawls Parade of Stars, which has raised more than $200 million to benefit the United Negro College Fund. On Dec. 27, 1986, Mr. Rawls and Sinatra dueted on "I've Got the World on a String" on the national telecast. This year's college fund special, a Stevie Wonder tribute taped in September at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, airs at 10:30 tonight on WGN-Channel 9. It will be dedicated to Rawls, who performs "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "It Was a Very Good Year." From 1976 to 1997 he was a national spokesman for Anheuser-Busch, delivering the slogan "When you say Budweiser, you've said it all." A jingle he recorded for WGN-Channel 9 in 1983 with the refrain, "Calling me home, Chicago" was heard on the station for many years. Backed cultural center During the early 1990s, Mr. Rawls was one of the first to lobby to make use of the empty lot where the historic Regal stood from 1928 to 1973. The Harold Washington Cultural Center, which opened there at 47th and King Drive in 2004, was called the Lou Rawls Theatre and Cultural Center until he left the project. Mr. Rawls was married Jan. 1, 2003, to Nina Malek in an impromptu ceremony in Memphis. In December, he said in court papers that he was trying to annul his marriage and protect hundreds of thousands of dollars of assets that his wife "absconded with." His estranged wife, who has worked as Rawls manager since 2003, said she transferred nearly $350,000 into an account she solely controls to prevent one of Rawls' two daughters from seizing the money. His wife was beside him at the time of his death. Mr. Rawls also was survived by three adult children -- Louanna Rawls, Lou Rawls Jr. and Kendra Smith -- as well as an infant son, Aiden. Funeral arrangements are pending.
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