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Lou Rawls VibeZ

Thirty tracks from a baritone who sang blues, jazz, gospel and Philadelphia soul, and whose speaking voice was almost as famous as his singing.

Lou Rawls (1933–2006)

Lou Rawls came out of Chicago's church scene — he sang in a gospel group with Sam Cooke as a teenager — and built a career that refused to stay in any one genre. He recorded jazz standards, blues, soul, a Philadelphia International run, and a great deal of live material in which he would talk for minutes before singing a note.

That speaking was a real part of the act and a real skill. The monologues — setting up a song's story, usually about Chicago, usually funny — are a direct inheritance from the blues tradition, and almost nobody else was doing them in a nightclub in 1966.

He also spent decades raising money for the United Negro College Fund through an annual telethon, which is its own kind of legacy.

What to listen for

"You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" is the enormous one — a 1976 Gamble and Huff production that became his signature and one of the great Philadelphia records.

"Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" and "Your Good Thing (Is About To End)" are the sixties soul records, the second written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.

"A Natural Man" won him a Grammy and is the most theatrical thing here.

"Dead End Street" aside, "Tobacco Road" is where the blues side is clearest, and "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black And Blue" is the Fats Waller song that Louis Armstrong made a protest record.

"Groovy People" and "Lady Love" are the other Philadelphia International sides.

"God Bless The Child" and "Send the Clowns" live are the jazz-standard readings, and the second demonstrates how much he could do with a song everyone had heard too often.

"Trade Winds" is the deep cut that keeps appearing on serious soul playlists.

Go deeper

All Things in Time (1976) is the Philadelphia album; Lou Rawls Live! (1966) is where the monologues are, and it is one of the best live soul records ever made.

For the wider tradition of jazz-inflected male soul singing: Joe Williams, Billy Eckstine and Arthur Prysock, all of whom are underserved by streaming and worth the effort.

Listening note: the monologues are the part nobody replicates. Setting up a song's story at length before singing a note is a direct inheritance from the blues, and almost nobody else was doing it in a nightclub in the mid-sixties. The live recordings are where that skill lives, and they are the ones to seek out.

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