Lou Rawls

News Obituary Article

AN APPRECIATION / LOU RAWLS: Silky baritone's cool was timeless

By BO EMERSON

Lou Rawls' great big baritone voice has been described as "sweet as sugar, soft as velvet, strong as steel, smooth as butter."

Rawls, 72, died Friday morning at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He had been hospitalized last month for lung and brain cancer.

He was a three-time Grammy winner, earning an award for his signature single "Natural Man," and a nomination for his platinum-selling 1976 album, "All Things in Time," which produced the classic disco hit "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine."

"For the women, that voice was so sexy and, for the men, it was so masculine," said H. Johnson, host of WABE-FM's "Jazz Classics" program that airs Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tonight's show will be dedicated to Rawls' body of work, Johnson said.

"I think we're losing an original, as well as an innovator and the last of a generation of performers who could cross over from one style of music to another," Johnson said. "Lou Rawls ran the gamut. And he could swing. Man, he could swing."

Rawls sold 40 million records in a career that began in a church choir on the South Side of Chicago and branched into television and movie appearances and voice-talent work.

He gained a reputation as a tireless fund-raiser for the United Negro College Fund, conducting a yearly telethon that has raised more than $200 million for the organization.

"He had a beautiful voice and a wonderful spirit," said Arlene Cash, a vice president at Spelman College, one of the many historically black colleges and universities that have benefited from Rawls' efforts. "He set the standard."

He will make his final appearance in the UNCF telethon "An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Stevie Wonder," which will air at 9 tonight on CBS.

Rawls was a high school classmate of soul singer Sam Cooke and sang with Cooke in a '50s gospel group called the Teenage Kings of Harmony. In 1955 he enlisted in the Army and served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, returning to civilian life after three years.

In 1958 he was touring with Cooke in another gospel group when they were involved in an automobile accident that killed one member of the group and put Rawls in a coma for 5 1/2 days. He required months to regain his memory and a year to fully recover.

Rawls provided background vocals for Cooke's soul classic "Bring It on Home to Me" and had early success with a jazz version of "Stormy Monday."

Though his stage presence was one of sleepy-eyed cool, he could be demanding as a bandleader, said Clark Atlanta University associate professor of music James Patterson, who served as a reed man in one of Rawls' big bands in the 1970s. "If the band wasn't kicking like he wanted it to kick, he would scream loudly," Patterson said.

What listeners will remember about Rawls is that mellifluous tone, said George Lowe, an Atlanta voice talent performer (the voice of Space Ghost) and a fellow baritone.

"He had that instant recognition," Lowe said. "That voice, boom, you knew it the second you heard it. Like looking at a Picasso."

A. Scott Walton contributed to this article. Rawls' biographical information was supplied by news services.

© 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution