Lou Rawls Biography
Lou Rawls was born as Louis Allen Rawls on December 1, 1933, and died on January 6, 2006. He was an American singer, songwriter, actor, voice actor, and record producer. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his song “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine”.
He worked as a film, television, and voice actor. He was also a three-time Grammy-winner, all for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Rawls was born in Chicago on December 1, 1933, and raised by his grandmother in the Ida B. Wells projects on the city’s South Side.
Rawls began singing in the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church choir at the age of seven and later sang with local groups through which he met Sam Cooke, who was nearly three years older, and Curtis Mayfield.
Lou Rawls Age
Lou Rawls died at the age of 72 years. born and died (December 1, 1933 – January 6, 2006).
Lou Rawls Photo
Lou Rawls Net Worth
Lou Rawls was an American singer of jazz, blues and soul music who had a net worth of $10 million.
Lou Rawls Wife
Rawls’s first marriage was to Lana Jean Taylor(2 February 1963 – 15 October 1973) they had 3 children. his second wife was Elva Cecelia Cope(1989 – 2003) they did not have any children. In 2003 Rawls married Nina Inman.
On December 19, 2005, the Associated Press reported that Rawls tried to annul his two-year marriage to Inman, who had been acting as his business manager after it was discovered she had made unauthorized transfers amounting to nearly $350,000 from his bank account into an account solely controlled by Andrew Baijnath.
She later stated that she had transferred the funds to protect them from one of Rawls’ daughters from a previous relationship. Rawls had one son with Inman, Aiden Allen Rawls. He also fathered two daughters: Louanna Rawls, a wardrobe stylist and future Launch My Line contestant, and Kendra Smith, as well as a prior son, Lou Rawls, Jr.
Lou Rawls Career
Dunbar Vocational High School where Rawls graduated from. He sang briefly with Cooke in the Teenage Kings of Harmony, a gospel group, and then with the Holy Wonders. In 1951, he replaced Cooke in the Highway QC’s after Cooke departed to join The Soul Stirrers in Los Angeles. Rawls was hired by the Chosen Gospel Singers and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined the Pilgrim Travelers.
In 1955, Rawls enlisted in the United States Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He left the All-Americans three years later as a sergeant and rejoined the Pilgrim Travelers. In 1958, while touring the South with the Travelers and Sam Cooke, Rawls was in a car crash. He was pronounced dead before arriving at the hospital, where he stayed in a coma for five and a half days. He spent a year recuperating and several months before his memory returned. He considered the crash a life-changing event.
Rawls was able to perform at the Hollywood Bowl in 1959 With Dick Clark as master of ceremonies. His first two singles were “Love, Love, Love” and “Walkin’ (For Miles)” for Shar-Dee Records, a label owned by Herb Alpert. “In My Little Black Book” and “80 Ways” were released a year later by Candix Records. In 1962 he signed a contract with Capitol Records and sang backing vocals on “Bring It On Home to Me” and “That’s Where It’s At”, both written by Cooke. Rawls charted with a cover of “Bring It On Home to Me” in 1970.
Stormy Monday, a jazz album with Les McCann, was released in 1962. The next two Capitol albums Black and Blue, Tobacco Road sold well and employed Onzy Matthews as musical director and a 17-piece big band. Both albums reached the Billboard magazine charts and propelled his career.
Although his 1966 album Live! was certified gold, Rawls would not have a star-making hit until he made a soul album, named Soulin’, later that same year. The album contained “Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing”. his first R&B No.1 single. In 1967 he won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance for the single “Dead End Street”. In 1967, he performed at the first evening of the Monterey International Pop Music Festival.
In 1969, Rawls was a co-host of NBC’s summer replacement series for the Dean Martin Show with Martin’s daughter, singer Gail Martin. After leaving Capitol in 1971, he signed with MGM and released the single “Natural Man” written for him by comedian Sandy Baron and singer Bobby Hebb. For Bell Records in 1974, he recorded a cover version of “She’s Gone” by Hall & Oates. Two years later with his new manager Martin Pichinson, he signed with Philadelphia International and recorded All Things in Time, which sold a million copies. “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” became his biggest-selling single, selling a million copies, topping the R&B and Adult Contemporary charts, and reaching No. 2 on the pop chart. The hit single “Lady Love” followed, from the 1977 album When You Hear Lou, You’ve Heard It All.
Lou Rawls Songs
1. You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
2. Natural Man
3. Lady Love
4. See You When I Git There
5. Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing
6. Your Good Thing
7. Dead End Street
8. Groovy People
9. Stormy Monday
10. Tobacco Road
11. I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water
12. This Song Will Last Forever
13. Early Morning Love
14. There Will Be Love
15. Fine Brown Frame
16. You Made Me So Very Happy
17. If I Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
18. Let Me Be Good to You
19. Bring It on Home to Me
20. Spring Again
21. Pure Imagination
22. Down Here on the Ground
23. St. James Infirmary
24. One Life to Live
25. Ain’t That Loving You
26. I Wish You Belonged To Me
27. Nobody but Me
28. At Last
29. Forever I Do
30. In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down
31. Not the Staying Kind
32. Black and Blue
Lou Rawls Death
Rawls was being treated for lung cancer in December 2005 that spread to his brain. With his wife of two years by his side, Lou Rawls died from his illness on January 6, 2006, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
Lou Rawls’ final television performance occurred during the 2005–2006 edition of the telethon, honoring Stevie Wonder in September 2005 months before entering the hospital and after having been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year. He performed “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “It Was A Very Good Year” as a tribute to Frank Sinatra.
Lou Rawls Movies & Tv Shows
1. Blues Brothers 2000 1998
2. Angel, Angel, Down We Go 1969
3. Leaving Las Vegas
4. The Rugrats Movie
5. Watchers Reborn
6. Still Breathing 1997
7. Everything’s Jake
8. Lookin’ Italian
9. Don King: Only in America
10. A Garfield Christmas
11. The Price of Kissing
12. Betaville
13. The Code Conspiracy
14. Wildly Available
15. Sam Cooke: Legend 2003
16. Here Comes Garfield
17. Motel Blue
18. Petula Clark: A Sign of the Times 2001
19. Garfield’s Halloween Adventure
20. Garfield on the Town
21. Garfield’s Thanksgiving
22. After the Game 1997
23. Garfield in Paradise
24. Garfield Goes Hollywood
25. Garfield Gets a Life
26. A Man Is Mostly Water
27. Uh-Oh! 2003
28. Driven 1998
29. Bel Air 2000
30. Garfield in the Rough
31. Lou Rawls: Prime Concerts: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
32. Lou Rawls: The Jazz Channel Presents: BET on Jazz
33. Super Soul Session 2007
34. Super Stars Live 2003
35. Garfield: Travel Adventures 2005
36. Living Legends of Gospel. Vol. 2 2004
37. Living Legends of Gospel. Vol. 1 2004
38. The Prince Film
39. Showdown 1942
40. Straight from the Heart: Vol. 1 2005
Lou Rawls Albums
1. All Things in Time
2. Stormy Monday
3. Unmistakably Lou
4. Sit Down and Talk to Me
5. When You Hear Lou, You’ve Heard It All
6. Live
7. Lou Rawls Christmas
8. Live In Concert
9. Lou Rawls And Strings
10. I’m Blessed
11. The Soul of Lou Rawls (Live at The Newport Jazz Festival 1981)
12. The Soul Stirring Gospel Sounds of (Original Album Plus Bonus Tracks 1962)
13. The Rarest Lou Rawls (In the Beginning, 1959 – 1962)
14. Shades of Blue
15. Now Is The Time
16. Tobacco Road
17. You´ll never find another love like mine
18. Lou Rawls Live At The Century Plaza
19. Sweet Lover 2016
20. Lou Rawls – 1962
21. The Great White Hype 1996
22. Stormy Monday (Bonus Track Version) 1962
23. The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco 1960
24. Good Night, and Good Luck. 2005
25. The Essential Evelyn “Champagne” King
26. Stormy Monday (Original Album – Digitally Remastered) 1962
27. Close Company 1964
28. Stormy Monday (Original Album Plus Bonus Tracks 1962) 1962
29. Super Love
30. Odyssey (Expanded Edition) 1977
31. Walk Tall: The David Axelrod Years 2008
32. The Soul Stirring Gospel Sounds of the Pilgrim Travellers Featuring Lou Rawls 1962
33. That Old Feeling 1997
34. Above My Head: Soul Beginnings 1962
35. In Person (Live) 1968
36. Stormy Monday (Mono Version) 1962
37. Rods N’ Ratfinks 2012
38. Burn Bright 2016
39. Stormy Monday (feat. Les McCann) [Remastered 2016] 1962
40. The Very Best 2000
41. The Very Best Of Lou Rawls 2006
Lou Rawls Lady Love
Lou Rawls Legend
Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, brought the Lou Rawls album When the Night Comes into space with him. It contained the song “Wind Beneath My Wings”. In 1989, he performed vocals for “The Music and Heroes of America” segment in the animated television miniseries This Is America, Charlie Brown.
In January 2004, Rawls was honored by the United Negro College Fund for his more than 25 years of charity work with the organization. Instead of hosting and performing as he usually did, Rawls was given the seat of honor and celebrated by his performing colleagues, including Stevie Wonder, The O’Jays, Gerald Levert, and Ashanti.
In 2009, Pathway Entertainment announced its intention to produce a biopic about Rawls’s life, tentatively titled Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing: The Lou Rawls Story., with Rawls’ son, Lou Rawls, Jr., writing the screenplay and Isaiah Washington reportedly playing Rawls.