Lou Rawls Passes at 72

Death of Lung Cancer Led Newscast Reports Ahead Of Condition Of Israeli Prime Minister; Enjoyed Wide Range of Audiences for Mastery of Musical Genres

the Word NetPaper

http://thewordnetpaper.tripod.com

http://www.geocities.com/walkerworld_2000

Funder of noble causes, Grammy Award winner, Budweiser Beer pitchman, backup singer to friend Sam Cooke, bit part actor and animated movie voice-over performer Lou Rawls, age 72 passed of complications from lung and brain cancer it was reported Friday.

The onetime Chicago native died in Los Angeles Cedar Sinai hospital attended by his wife Nina. He was a heavy smoker at one time but said he quit 35 years ago. His series of telethons originally called "Lou Rawls Parade of Stars" raised more than $200 million for education causes and the United Negro College Fund, which continues them as the Evening of Stars being broadcast this weekend.

Lou Rawls songs sold more than 40 million albums for the Grammy Award singer. He also appeared in a few movies, with small roles in "Blues Brother 2000," the sequel of the toe-tapping film with Joe Morton, and his voice was used as one of the characters in the "Rugrats Movie" in 1998.

News of the death of the award winning singer's passing led off the noontime news on many station even before news of that of Ariel Sharon, the stricken prime minister of Israel. They spliced in some of their favourite Rawls tunes, usually "You'll Never Find" although a few preferred "Dead End Street" and some of his Neo Blues songs.

"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" and his dance tune "Groovy People" were also mentioned and/or excerpted. "Like A Natural Man", “Tobacco Road”, Stormy Monday”, "Your Good Thing (Is About To Come To An End)” , "This One is For You" and "Lady Love" also had their many fans over his long career.

Rawls also was "a nice and fun man" remembered a female co-host on ET the TV magazine, commenting Friday evening after airing a clip from one of their interviews near another of the telethons he founded.

JOINED CHOIR TO AVOID BEING SMOOSHED BETWEEN G'MA AND HER FRIENDS ON SUNDAYS

Chicago stations especially featured the most extensive and continuing coverage where Rawls' passing was the biggest news of the day. It even eclipsed the fiery devastation of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Bronzeville. The famous Southside landmark church was originally a Jewish synagogue and was instrumental in the formation of Gospel music in a city where Rawls received his early training as a member of the boys' choir in his own church.

Rawls said he joined the choir out of boredom at the enforced churchgoing, and to escape being squeezed between his grandmother and her friends on Sundays as they fanned and chatted and uh-hummed amongst themselves.

In the boys church choir he found others of his own age, and the experience allowed his latent talent to find expression that made him into an international singing star. His talents were to take him far from the South Side of Chicago to foreign lands, and eventually he relocated to California, but he maintained his ties to his Chicago roots. In this he was like Chaka Khan, who although living in a villa in France finds time to fly back and visit even her cousins in Milwaukee 80 miles north of Chicago.

THE ICEMAN, RUSH LIMBAUGH RELATE RAWLS' STORIES

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, a former Top 40 DJ even featured Rawls' music as bumper cuts on his Friday radio show, adding information on his tunes and production from his industry knowledge.

Rawls' appeal was so widespread because he blended different disciplines from his life. Raised in Chicago as a choirboy in the church, he melded Gospel, R&B, Jazz and Blues combined with a mellifluous voice and just as smooth and uncluttered delivery. No fancy theatricality, just a straight-ahead singer of songs.

Cook County Supervisor Jerry Butler is known for politics in Chicago these days, but Back In Tha Day he was known as "The Iceman." He still performs as he did in Milwaukee for the National Association of Counties gathering a few years ago. He spoke of his colleague to WBBM 780 AM radio:

"If you listen to his singing he hit every note right in the center, not on the side or after it" said Butler, who gained his nickname for his own smooth and cool delivery.

ONCE TEAMED WITH CHI. HOMEBOY SAM COOKE

"I always said that 'Lou Rawls was just a Country Boy who happened to grow up on the South side of Chicago" said Butler.

Rawls modeled his career partly off that of fellow Chicagoan and gospelier friend Sam Cooke, who also made a controversial transition to Worldly music.

Rawls sang backup on his friend's record "Bring It On Home To Me" by Sam Cooke. In an excerpt played by radio station WBBM as part of their wide-ranging Rawls coverage you can discern the strong Gospel influences on the two men as they alternated the traded exclamations "Yeah" "Yeah" "Yeah" "Yeah."

There is the noticeable "Call And Response" that is so much a part of church congregations that it has become woven into the music, a heritage of African tribal celebrations that has been preserved like the curious patterns in our grandmother's quilts of which we've forgotten the meaning but that Africans recognize right away as tribal symbols.

"DEAD END STREET" SPOKE OF HARD SCRABBLE GHETTO LIFE RAWLS DIDN'T EXPERIENCE; "LADY LOVE" AN ODE TO WIVES

In an era of socially conscious music in the 1970s that saw the Temptations sing of a "Ball of Confusion" and Marvin Gaye to ask "¿What's Going On?," Rawls sang of a living in a "Dead End Street", "in a city without a heart...

"They say this is a big rich town
But I live in the poorest part
I’m living on a dead end street
In a city without a heart…

I knew the facts before I was six
The only way to get along
When you’re living on a dead end street
You gotta be tough and strong

... All the kids are all getting in trouble
That's the way its always been
When the odds are all stacked against you
¿How can you win?.... "

He sang of the cold Winter wind called “The Hawk” that blew in off Lake Michigan as the disaffected walked its streets bereft of hope; but he also was a singer of romantic ballads that recognized the bond between Man and Wo-Man back in the day when it was unthinkable of sitting down in a studio, preparing a taping and calling women out of their names, which even low-down, gut-bucket Blues songs wouldn't do.

Often his lyrics are with his deep baritone at first, then elevating to a higher, plaintive almost-wail, like the last thin veneer of macho control starting to show its cracks. This is aptly heard in "Lady Love" which is a song of a grateful man to his life and Soul Mate. It featured Rawls singing the praises

"Your love is peaceful as a baby's touch...
My Lady Love
You've been with me
through all of my ups and downs...

...And I keep on needing you
a little more and more..."

SOULFUL BALLADEER'S SONGS UPHELD ROMANCE AND WOMENHOOD, EVEN IN PAIN

In his "Love Is a Hurting Thing" the ideas were poignant even in a time when the lyrics were much more poetical than today:

"For every little thrill
There's a little teardrop
For every little thrill
There's another heartbreak

The road is rough
The going gets tough,
Yes, Love is a hurting thing...

Love can bring such joy,
But why must it bring such pain?
Its a mystery that nobody can explain...

When you're in my arms
I'm King on a throne
But when we're apart
I walk the streets alone

One day happiness
The next day loneliness
Yes, Love is a hurtin' thing..."

His "Groovy People" was a finger-popping dance club tune; while Rawls' "You'll Never Find" doubtless found its way into many phone answering machine messages as people wanted others to contemplate its lyrics. The song as Rawls sang it reeks with the lovelorn and bitterness of the pleading/prediction :

"You'll never find
Another love like mine
Someone who loves you
The way that I do...

You'll never find
It'll take the end of all time
To find one who cares for you
The way that I do...

You'll never find
No matter where you search
Someone who cares about you
The way that I do...
..No no no no no no
no no no no one else... "

...Now I'm not bragging on myself, baby
But there's no if or buts or maybes
You're gonna miss my loving...
When its cold outside...

In a concert in Milwaukee to benefit a hospital caring for general populations, he performed a medley of his most popular tunes. When in the middle he casually threw in "What Do You Say..." the beginning verses from the television and radio commercial "Budweiser Jingle" he was known for, the audience erupted into enthusiastic, vigourous applause. This was before the music for commercials became a stand alone feature of its own, beloved of The People though critics sniffed at them. Even then Rawls was ahead of the times.

Lou Rawls' songs sold more than 40 million albums for the Grammy Award singer. He also appeared in a few movies, with small roles in "Blues Brother 2000" the sequel of the toe-tapping film with Joe Morton; and was one of the characters in the "Rugrats Movie" in 1998.

RAWLS WAS PHILANTHROPIST FOR EDUCATION; STARTED UNCF "EVENING OF STARS"

Rawls pursued a lifelong concentration on pushing the young to education, using his skills and celebrity to aid efforts to those ends. He started the "Lou Rawls' Evening of Stars" fundraising telethons to get money for higher educational scholarships and to assist the Historical Black Colleges and Universities of the UNCF to the tune of more than $200,000,000.00 dollars.

In syndication in its early years it could be seen late at night for the hardy, or on another weekend oftentimes weeks after it was taped as part of the Public Service stations had to show to keep their licenses. Now called "An Evening of Stars" it is being broadcast nationally this weekend on many stations as part of the UPN television network.

In an interview Rawls was asked how would he like to be remembered?

" ... As somebody who tried to help... someone who took the tools he had been given... and worked to help others."

Mission Accomplished.

Lou Rawls will be missed. Requiescat In Pace.

-- kevin j. walker, Netitor
http://thewordnetpaper.tripod.com
http://www.geocities.com/walkerworld_2000