http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/06/obit.rawls/index.htmlLou Rawls dead at 72
Soul singer known for stunning voice, charitable endeavors
Friday, January 6, 2006; Posted: 1:40 p.m. EST (18:40 GMT)
(CNN) -- Lou Rawls, whose mellifluous baritone was featured on hits ranging from his own "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" to Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me," has died. He was 72.
Rawls died Friday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He was hospitalized last month for treatment of lung and brain cancer, said his publicist, Paul Shefrin. His wife, Nina, was at his bedside when he died.
The singer was as well known for his charitable activities as he was for his smooth four-octave range. He founded the Lou Rawls Parade of Stars Telethon, which raised millions of dollars for the United Negro College Fund.
Rawls was born on December 1, 1933, in Chicago, Illinois. (Some sources say 1935.) He was trained in gospel, like his childhood friend Sam Cooke.
As a teenager he took Cooke's place in Cooke's gospel group, the Highway QCs. He later supported Cooke on tour and in the studio.
Rawls nearly died in an auto accident while traveling with Cooke in 1958, spending several days in a coma, according to Allmusic.com.
Rawls sang in a variety of genres, from gospel to soul to standards.
"I've gone the full spectrum, from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop," Rawls once said on his Web site, according to The Associated Press. "And the public has accepted what I've done through it all."
Rawls sang background on Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me" -- that's him doing the "yeah" responses and some harmonies. He had his first big solo hit with 1966's "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing," which earned him a mention in Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music."
He had his biggest hit in 1976 with "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," which topped the R&B charts and hit No. 2 on the pop charts.
Other hits include "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," "A Natural Man" and "Lady Love."
He won three Grammys and is reported to have sold more than 40 million albums.
Rawls also appeared in a variety of TV shows and movies, including the films "Leaving Las Vegas" and "The Rugrats Movie" and the TV shows "The Big Valley," "Mannix," "Fantasy Island" and "Baywatch," according to the Internet Movie Database.
His voice also graced TV commercials, notably ads for Anheuser-Busch, the beer company for which he was the corporate spokesman.
Rawls was diagnosed with lung cancer in December 2004 and brain cancer in May 2005, according to the AP.
He is survived by his wife Nina, as well as his three adult children, Louanna Rawls, Lou Rawls Jr. and Kendra Smith, and his infant son, Aiden.
Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 6 January 2006 18:43 (twenty years ago)
Silken-Voiced R& B Singer Lou Rawls
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 7, 2006; Page B05
Lou Rawls, who possessed one of the great voices in popular music, with a rich, unmistakable tone that made him a leading soul and pop singer of the 1960s and '70s, died of lung and brain cancer Jan. 6 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Although some published records give his age as 69 or 70, his publicist said he was 72.
Mr. Rawls had a supple, seductive baritone voice that carried him from the gospel choirs of his youth through jazz, rhythm and blues, pop and soul and back again. He recorded more than 75 albums, won three Grammy Awards and had five gold records. Until his illness forced him to stop last month, he appeared in 200 concerts a year.
In addition to his work in music, Mr. Rawls was a leading fundraiser for the United Negro College Fund. As the host of an annual telethon, he raised more than $200 million in contributions in the past 25 years.
A street is named for him in his native Chicago. Mr. Rawls appeared as an actor in many films and television shows, but it was his suave, polished singing style for which he will be most remembered.
No less an authority than Frank Sinatra once said that Mr. Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game."
He did not leap to fame at an immature age but instead worked his way up through the old "chitlin circuit" of primarily African American venues. By the time he found fame, Mr. Rawls was well into his thirties, and his vocal style was established.
He scored his first major hit with "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" in 1966, followed by "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" (1970), "A Natural Man" (1971), "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)" (1976) and "Lady Love" (1977). Long after his popularity was thought to have faded, Mr. Rawls sailed back into public favor in 1989 with "At Last," which reached No. 1 on the contemporary jazz charts.
Mr. Rawls had a rare ability to blend his voice into whatever style the times demanded.
"I didn't try to change every time the music changed," he once said. "I just stayed in that pocket where I was because it was comfortable and the people liked it."
He was an accomplished jazz singer -- he engaged in a scat duet with actor Will Ferrell in the recent movie "Anchorman" -- but his style was rooted in the blues, soul and R&B. Early in his career, he inadvertently developed a precursor to hip-hop with the spoken monologues he used to introduce songs.
"I was working in small clubs and coffeehouses," he said. "I'd be up there trying to sing, and people were talking so loud. So to get their attention, instead of singing, I'd start reciting the words to songs. Then I started making up little stories about the song and what it was relating to."
It became such a hallmark of his style that an audience was brought into the studio as he recorded "Lou Rawls Live" in 1966, his first album to become a major pop hit. On the 1967 song, "Dead End Street," Mr. Rawls improvised a spoken introduction that referred to the wind, hunger and danger he had known while growing up on the streets of Chicago.
"His voice has developed an individual style that projects strength but never loses its mellowness," one critic wrote. "There is an innate integrity in everything he sings."
Louis Allen Rawls was born on the South Side of Chicago and was raised by his grandmother after his parents each left the family home. He joined the children's choir of his church when he was 7.
He grew up in a musically inspired neighborhood. One of his school classmates, and a frequent gospel singing partner, was R&B master Sam Cooke. Others from the neighborhood included Curtis Mayfield and future members of the Staple Singers, Flamingos, Dells, Impressions and Chi-Lites.
Mr. Rawls often attended concerts with Cooke at Chicago's old Regal Theater, where they heard such musical greats as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat "King" Cole and Billy Eckstine, as well as popular doo-wop vocal groups of the day.
The two young friends sang in a group called the Teenage Kings of Harmony in the early 1950s, long before either of them became famous. Mr. Rawls made his first recording in 1954 with the Chosen Gospel Singers. He then teamed up with Cooke in the Pilgrim Travelers gospel group before joining the Army in 1955 and serving in the 82nd Airborne Division.
He and Cooke later reunited but their gospel career ended on a highway in Arkansas in 1958, when their Cadillac collided with an 18-wheel tractor-trailer. Cooke was slightly injured, another passenger was killed and Mr. Rawls was declared dead in the ambulance.
He was in a coma for several days and temporarily lost his memory, and it was a year before he made a full recovery. By then, he had launched a solo career in Los Angeles, working for $10 a night, plus pizza. A Capitol Records producer signed him to a contract.
Mr. Rawls's first album, "Stormy Monday" -- (sometimes known as "I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water") -- came out in 1962. The same year, he sang the memorable -- and long uncredited -- background vocals on Cooke's R&B hit, "Bring It On Home to Me."
Mr. Rawls turned toward soul music in his next albums, including "Tobacco Road" and "Soulin'," before his breakout live recording. After winning a Grammy for "Dead End Street" and receiving a nomination for "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," he switched to a new record label, which wanted to remake him as a bland pop singer.
He dutifully recorded a forgettable bubble gum single, then dug into a grittier song, alluding to his Chicago background, on the B side. That song, "A Natural Man," brought Mr. Rawls his second Grammy.
He later signed with Philadelphia International Records, known for its lush, discolike "Philadelphia sound." He had his biggest hit, "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)," which climbed to No. 1 on R&B charts and No. 2 on the pop charts in 1976.
His 1977 album "All Things in Time" went platinum, and another album that year, "Unmistakably Lou," garnered a third Grammy.
He appeared on talk shows throughout the 1970s, and in 1976 became the corporate spokesman for Anheuser-Busch and commercial voice of Budweiser.
In 1979, Mr. Rawls held his first telethon to benefit the United Negro College Fund. Each January, he was the host of the gala event, drawing such luminaries as Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandross, Gladys Knight, Paul McCartney, Eddie Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg.
The source of his altruism, Mr. Rawls said, lay in his near-fatal accident in 1958.
"I really got a new life out of that," he said. "I saw a lot of reasons to live."
Although he was something of a spiritual father of rap music, Mr. Rawls spoke out against what he considered its "belligerence."
He maintained that the public was hungry for stylish music presented by skillful, well-turned-out performers. In his own case, he abandoned much of the '70s excesses of R&B to return to the jazz and blues basics, with "Portrait of the Blues" (1993) and "Rawls Sings Sinatra" (2003). In 2001 and 2002, he released his first solo gospel records, with another scheduled for this year.
Mr. Rawls's first two marriages ended in divorce. He had three adult children.
In January 2004, he married to Nina Malek Inman, variously described as his manager or a flight attendant. They adopted a son in January 2005.
In December, Mr. Rawls attempted to annul his marriage, claiming that his wife had helped herself to his money. She said she transferred $350,000 to one of her accounts to keep one of Mr. Rawls's daughters from taking it.
According to his publicist, Mr. Rawls and his wife had reconciled in the final days of his life.
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 7 January 2006 14:53 (twenty years ago)