October 4, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Lou Rawls brings his unique and unmistakable voice, called by one critic "sweet as sugar, soft as velvet," to Portland as he performs the songs that made him famous, including "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)" and "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" in four Oregon Symphony Bank of America Pops concerts Nov. 2 and 4 at 8 p.m., with two Sunday performances Nov. 3 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. An additional performance will be held Nov. 5 in Salem at Willamette University's Smith Auditorium. Media support provided by Newsradio 750 KXL, FOX 12 Oregon and MEDIAmerica.
Rawls' flawless sound and smooth style has given pleasure to audiences for more than forty years and has won him several Grammy awards. His eclectic career spans his early days as a gospel singer, collaborations with Sam Cooke, his experiments with rap-style monologues onstage years before the advent of rap and hip-hop music, and his many television and movie acting credits. Rawls' numerous Grammy nominations in pop, jazz, R&B and children's recordings earned him the moniker "crossover artist" years before other performers tried experimenting with diverse musical styles.
In his 40-plus years as a recording artist, Rawls has made more than 70 albums, three of which received Grammy awards. In addition, his album "All Things in Time" went platinum, five more albums went gold, and he also recorded a gold single, "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)."
Guest Conductor Charles Prince, currently the Associate Conductor of the New York Pops, leads the Oregon Symphony in the first half of the concert, which features several well-known works from the American musical theater, including Richard Rodgers' "Oklahoma Suite," and "Carousel Waltz," music from Leonard Bernstein's "On the Town," and Styne's "Overture to Gypsy." After intermission Rawls takes the stage, where he'll announce his musical selections. Some of Rawls' most popular hits include "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," "Groovy People," and "Natural Man."
Performances are scheduled for Saturday and Monday, Nov. 2 and 4, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 3 at 3 and 7 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Ticket prices range from $23 to $65 and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster Online, via the Symphony's Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
His voice is as distinctive and instantly recognizable as any in music. From his early days in gospel to his collaborations with Sam Cooke; from the "Dick Clark Show" at the Hollywood Bowl in 1959 to opening for The Beatles in 1963 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati; from his monologues in the sixties and seventies that prefigured rap music; to becoming a crossover artist before the term was invented, there has been one constant in Lou Rawls' career — a voice that one critic has called "sweet as sugar, soft as velvet, strong as steel, smooth as butter."
In Rawls' 40-plus years as a recording artist, he's made more than 70 albums, won three Grammy awards, and earned 13 Grammy nominations, not to mention one platinum album, five gold albums and a gold single. The ultimate song stylist, Rawls explains his fame this way: "I've gone the full spectrum — from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop — and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time." In bringing R&B to pop, Chicago to Los Angeles, and black to white, Rawls has also been one of the most successful and influential of popular musicians.
Rawls was raised on the south side of Chicago by his grandmother, where he began singing gospel as a seven-year-old in his Baptist church choir. As a teenager, his horizons expanded with trips to the Regal Theatre to see Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock and Joe Williams. "I loved the way they could lift the spirit of the audience," Rawls remembers. Influenced too by doo-wop, he'd harmonize with high school classmate Cooke, and they joined groups such as the Teenage Kings Of Harmony.
In the 1950's, Rawls went to Los Angeles and was recruited for the Chosen Gospel Singers, with whom he later made his first recording. He then moved on to the Pilgrim Travelers before enlisting in 1955 as a paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, the All-American. Three years later, Sergeant Rawls left the service and rejoined the Travelers.
It was during a tour of the South with Cooke and the Travelers that a serious car accident nearly ended Rawls' career and his life. One passenger was killed, Cooke was slightly injured and Rawls was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital. Though he slipped into a coma for five-and-a-half days, suffered memory loss, and wasn't completely recovered for a year, he survived. "I really got a new life out of that," he says. "I saw a lot of reasons to live. I began to learn acceptance, direction, understanding and perception — all elements that had been sadly lacking in my life. I might have lived long enough to learn all this in the long haul but I would have been just another soul taking up time and space for a long spell before I learned."
In 1959, Rawls was playing small R&B, pop and soul clubs in L.A. at Pandora's Box Coffee Shop for $10 a night plus pizza when Nick Venet, a producer at Capitol Records, was so impressed with his four-octave range that he invited Rawls to make an audition tape. Rawls later signed with Capitol. "I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water," his 1962 solo debut album, was the first of more than 20 albums he recorded with Capitol over the next decade. But while Rawls' rendition of "Stormy Monday" made a mark — and that same year he was heard on Cooke's classic "Bring It On Home To Me" — it was "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" in 1966 which shot Rawls to the top, as the song reached No.1 on the R&B chart and No.13 on the pop chart. It was also nominated for two Grammy awards, for Best R&B Recording and Best R&B Solo Vocal Performance.
During this period, Rawls also began delivering improvised spoken-word monologues about life and love on "World Of Trouble" and "Tobacco Road." Called "pre-rap" by some, for Rawls they grew out of necessity. "I was working in little joints where the stage would be behind the bar," he explained. "So you were standing right over the cash register and the crushed ice machine. You'd be swinging and the waitress would yell, 'I want 12 beers and four martinis!' And then the dude would put the ice in the crusher. There had to be a way to get the attention of the people. So instead of just starting in singing, I would just start in talking the song."
His "raps" were so popular that 1967's "Dead End Street" reached both No. 3 on the R&B charts, made pop's Top 40, and won Rawls his first Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance. His 1969 Grammy-nominated song "Your Good Thing (Is About To End)" was also a Top 40 hit.
In 1971, the year he went to MGM Records, Rawls' popularity could be measured by the fact he won the Downbeat magazine poll for favorite male vocalist, besting perennial champ Frank Sinatra (who praised Rawls for having "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"). Rawls continued his streak of hits and Grammies with "Natural Man." However, with the advent of disco in the mid-seventies, Rawls, the epitome of quality and timeless artistry, balked. "[A lyric] has to mean something to me, something that has happened to me," he explains. "I try to look for songs people can relate to because I know the man on the corner waiting for the bus has to hear it and say, 'Yeah, that's right.' When I did "Love's A Hurtin' Thing" recently, a woman came to me and said, 'How do you know what my life is about? I feel as if you're singing to me,' and that makes me feel wonderful. I have to relate to what my audience feels and thinks."
In 1975, while other artists succumbed to the beat, Rawls moved to Philadelphia International, the mecca of producers/songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and their renowned Philly sound. The following year "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)" became his biggest hit: No.2 pop, No.1 R&B, gold, and his first pop Grammy nomination, for Best Pop Vocal Performance. He also had a Top 20 R&B hit and Grammy nomination with "Groovy People." The next year, Rawls took home his third Grammy, for Best R&B Vocal Performance, with the song "Unmistakably Lou." Another hit, "See You When I Git There" made it into the R&B Top 10. Rawls' hot hit streak continued with "Lady Love"(1978), a Top 40 pop and R&B; a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance for the album "When You Hear Lou, You've Heard It All" and a No.11 R&B hit with 1979's "Let Me Be Good To You."
In addition to his many hit singles, Rawls' album "All Things In Time"(1976) achieved platinum sales, and his albums "Lou Rawls Live!"(1966), "Soulin'"(1966), "Unmistakably Lou,"(1977) and "When You Hear Lou, You've Heard It All"(1978) all went gold. At one point, Rawls had five albums on the charts simultaneously.
In 1976, Rawls became the corporate spokesman for Anheuser Busch, the world's largest brewery. In 1980, the company began sponsoring a series of concerts for American military personnel on bases around the world, as well as an annual telethon whose proceeds, now more than $200 million, benefit the United Negro College Fund.
Rawls' humanitarian efforts mean more to him than honors. His work for the UNCF has been a joy for a man who never went to college; over his career he has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates. "I remember a woman came up to me once and said, 'Thank you. You made my grandson the first college grad in our family.' That makes it all worth it," says Rawls.
Rawls also brought his talents to children's programming, as he took on the singing voice of the animated feline Garfield. In 1982, he was once again nominated for a Grammy, this time in the Best Recording for Children category for "Here Comes Garfield." More recently, he sang the title song for the Jungle Cubs animated series and was the voice of one of the Rugrats in the hit "Rugrats: The Movie." He is also the voice of the Postman on Nickelodeon's "Hey Arnold."
Rawls' talents also include acting in both films and television. His most notable projects include "Leaving Las Vegas," "Blues Brothers 2000," cameos on ABC's "Norm," UPN's "Martin" and a recurring role on "Baywatch Nights." He continues to be one of the hosts of BET's "Jazz Central." In the spring of 2000 BET aired "The Lou Rawls Special," a concert taped in front of a live audience.
Rawls continued to record successful songs into the eighties and he was honored when Lt. Col. Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut in space, chose to take Rawls' hit single "Wind Beneath My Wings," on a 1983 space shuttle voyage.
Jazz and blues made a commercial comeback in the late 1980's, and Rawls took advantage of that trend with a move to the legendary jazz label Blue Note, now part of Capitol Records, his original record company. In 1989, "At Last," co-produced by Billy Vera, reached No.1 on the jazz chart and brought Rawls another Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal, making him the rare artist to earn nods in pop, jazz and R&B, as well as Children's categories. He also shared a nomination that year with Ray Charles for Best Jazz Vocal, Duo Or Group, for "Save The Bones For Henry Jones" on Charles' "Just Between Us" album.
"At Last" was followed by Blue Note's reissue of his debut solo album, now titled "Stormy Monday," followed by "It's Supposed To Be Fun" in 1990. Rawls celebrated his 30th anniversary as a solo recording artist with the release in 1992 of "The Legendary Lou Rawls," a greatest hits collection of some of his early material, collected for the first time on CD, as well as his most recent and most popular songs. He also released "Portrait Of The Blues"(1993) and "Christmas Is The Time"(1995), his first holiday album since 1967.
Lou Rawls continues to make innovative career choices. In 1998 he started his own record label, Rawls & Brokaw Records, with long-time manager David Brokaw. In September 1998 Rawls released his first CD on this label, "Seasons 4 U," a 14-song compilation of seasonal songs. Like Rawls' career, "Seasons 4 U" spans jazz, pop, soul and gospel with the likes of "Turn, Turn, Turn;" "Here Comes The Sun," "Autumn Leaves" and a duet with Dianne Reeves on "Baby It's Cold Outside."
The second release on Rawls & Brokaw Records in the spring of 2000 was a two-volume set entitled "The Best of Lou Rawls o Volumes 1 & 2." Many of the 28 songs hand-picked by Rawls for the set had never been released on CD before this compilation.
In January 2000, Rawls enjoyed the honor of a Trumpet Award for his contributions as an entertainer and humanitarian. In June 2000 the International Entertainment Buyers Association (IEBA) honored Rawls with their Humanitarian/Lifetime Achievement Award.
As always, Rawls continues to tour extensively, from clubs to jazz festivals, from America to Europe to Asia. He also maintains an informational career website, www.lourawls.com. Rawls & Brokaw Records' releases are sold on the site. Most recently, he has released his first gospel album since his days with the Pilgrim Travelers on Malaco Records, "I'm Blessed."
During the 2001-2002 theater season, Rawls produced and starred in a musical titled "Me and Mrs. Jones," based on the classic Sound of Philadelphia standards written and produced by the songwriting team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. He once again partnered with manager David Brokaw and also with former president and CEO of Merv Griffin Enterprises, Murray Schwartz, to form The Philadelphia Sound Company for the production. Rawls starred, playing a judge who has a romance with Mrs. Jones. The successful musical ran to enthusiastic critical and popular reviews at the Prince Theatre in Philadelphia for four months and holds a record at the theatre for the number of sold out shows. Currently the producers are in the planning stages of mounting a national road tour of "Me and Mrs. Jones."
Sinatra once said about the two of them that they were saloon singers — voices reaching into hearts and souls. Throughout the years, Rawls has stayed true to his voice. "People may not know what I'm doing," he says of his changing of styles, "but they know it's me."
In the end, that's the only way to truly describe that voice — Lou Rawls.