| Remembering Lou Rawls: A Fighter Until The End |
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| Written by Steven Smith-Nevis | |
 Known for
classic songs such as "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" and
"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing," as well as his annual telethon, the former
club singer had a four-decade-long career that spanned music and acting
for television, film and voiceover.
Rawls was the voice for
the animated Garfield the Cat and voiced Harvey the Mailman on the
Nickelodeon cartoon series "Hey Arnold!" His feature film roles
included parts in "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Blues Brothers 2000." In
1999, he appeared on Broadway in the popular musical revue "Smokey
Joe's Cafe."
The
Lou Rawls Parade of Stars telethons and drives raised over $200 million
over 25 years for The United Negro College Fund (UNCF). "What Lou Rawls did for the UNCF says it all about his character. He raised nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and put tens of thousands of kids through school who wouldn't have otherwise gone if he hadn't have started the [UNCF] Parade of Stars," Rawls' publicist, Paul Shefrin, said.
Born and
raised in Chicago, Rawls was a part of the local gospel scene, when he
met a teenaged Sam Cooke, who became his mentor and role model. Rawls
went on to sing with Chicago groups such as the West Singers and the
Holy Wonders. In the mid-1950s he relocated to Los Angeles and recorded
with the Chosen Gospel Singers and the Pilgrim Travelers who had toured
the South with Cooke before achieving pop success.
In 1958,
Rawls was involved in a car accident which left him in a coma for
several days and suffering from memory loss. After working LA clubs for
a while, Rawls eventually signed to Capitol Records. In 1962, he
guested on Cooke's hit "Bring It On Home to Me" and made his solo debut
with the album I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water.
He went on to record twenty albums for Capitol during the 1960s,
including 1966's ballad "Love is a Hurtin' Thing," and earned his first
Grammy for the 1967 song "Dead End Street."
Rawls reached the
height of music popularity in the '70s at first with MGM Records where
he earned another Grammy for "A Natural Man," then with producers Kenny
Gamble and Leon Huff at their Philadelphia International outfit, where
he collected a third Grammy for the 1977 album Unmistakably Lou.
The three-time
Grammy winner passed away in his hospital room at Los
Angeles' Cedar-Sinai Medical Center after a year long battle with
cancer. He was 72. His wife, Nina, was by his bedside.
Shefrin, said Rawls "was a fighter to the end," performing as recently
as November 2005, long after being diagnosed with brain cancer in May
2005, as well as struggling against lung cancer for a year. He had quit smoking 35 years ago and was pursuing both traditional and alternative cancer treatments. Click for more R&B/soul and rap/hip-hop dearly departed in 2006 |
