Singer Lou Rawls Dies at 72
 

LOS ANGELES - Grammy Award-winning singer Lou Rawls has died of lung cancer in Los Angeles. He was 72.


The velvet-voiced singer started as a church choir boy and went on to sell more than 40 million albums. He won three Grammy Awards in a career that spanned nearly five decades and a range of genres.

Rawls died this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was hospitalized last month.

:( :( :( I had just read this. How very sad. :( Rest in peace, Mr. Rawls.

:( This is so sad, because my high school friends (one now a soror) and I had a running joke about Low Rawls all though high school. That was my homey in my head. R.I.P. Low Rawls.:(

sad...

Treblk, you can't find your post, b/c it was deleted from the AVE.

Tomorrow the UNCF telethon comes on too. :(

Thanks AKA2D, I thought I was going crazy for a minute there.
It's very sad! All our Greats are leaving us:( :(

:(

You'll never find......dun, dun,dun, dun, dun....

he will be missed.. I loved him on the Proud Family episode. :(

:(

:(

NOOOOOOOO!
:eek: :( :(

R.I.P

I knew there was a reason this week was going so crappy.

:( :( :(

They don't make them like him anymore. Rest in peace Lou.

:(

Right now, I have "You'll Never Find" running through my mind. I hope the jazz station here in SoCal plays his music, he did a great album with Les McCann back in the early 1960s.

RIP, Lou.

:(

We'll never find another voice like his. R.I.P. Lou :(

:(
when they said his lung cancer had spread to his brain, I knew it wouldn't be long. But still...

:( RIP

Didn't he have a one year old son? :confused: I could have sworn that he just became a father not that long ago.

Rest In Peace
 

May he R.I.P. He would definitely be missed throughout UNCF land.

Rest in peace, Mr. Rawls.

The telethon is coming on tomorrow night? Aw man. :( :(

R.I.P, Mr. Rawls.

that is one of my FAVORITE Proud episodes... i just watched it (again) last weekend!

When I heard it on the news earlier today I kept saying no. I know the guy who was installing our new security system thought I was crazy. But Mom did hear on the radio this morning he wasn't doing well.

I should go try and find Mom's Lou CD.

R.I.P. Lou:( :(

What she said! :( RIP Lou

I knew it was only a matter of time when I heard the news last month. One clear memory I have -- he was singing "You'll never Find" and he had the "coughs" in the middle of the song on tv. He still finished the song and sounded great!

My favorite song by him was "Let Me Be Good To You".

I was moved by this commentary
 

Commentary: Imagine a Popular Black Artist Inspiring Our Kids to Go to School Instead of Prison

When Lou Rawls recently died of cancer at age 72, we lost more than a legendary crooner with a Cognac-smooth voice.

We lost a black artist who put his pipes to work to sing the praises of education for black youths -- rather than eschew it as a pastime for squares that lack the savvy to turn the negativity of street life into profits.

That’s some task for a guy who never went to college himself.

It’s ironic that Rawls died when he did. This is, after all, the time of year that the annual “Evening of Stars Telethon,” once called the “Lou Rawls Parade of Stars Telethon,” is broadcasted. The telethon, which was taped last September, benefits the United Negro College Fund, and was shown last weekend.

Rawls began hosting the telethon in 1980 -- and each year, I’d look forward to seeing him decked out in his tuxedo, introducing other stars and exhorting viewers, in a speaking voice every bit as silky as his singing one, to support the nation’s historically black colleges and universities.

That voice proved to be persuasive. Since the telethon began, it has helped raise more than $200 million for the UNCF.

And Rawls’ role in it all wasn’t lost on young black people. One of his colleagues, H.P. Barnum, told ABC News that many times, “Someone would come up to [Rawls] on the streets and say, ‘Thank you so much, man. I went to school because of you.’”

Imagine that. A singer like Rawls, whose music some label as "pre-rap" because of the way he’d preface some of his songs with monologues, inspiring young black people to go to school instead of prison.

Yet, in many ways, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the fact that someone like Rawls would champion education. Many older black people, who grew up during times when college tended to be an unaffordable luxury for many of them, clearly saw the connection between an education and a better life. And while Rawls, a man who was reared on Chicago’s South Side, knew that he could color his art with his struggles in growing up in a tough neighborhood, unlike most of the rap artists today, he didn’t make his life imitate his art. Instead, by championing the UNCF, Rawls used his art as a tool for helping black youths to rise above the unhealthy influences in their lives.

Perhaps that happened because of an experience that he had in the 1950s. Rawls was touring the South with another legendary singer, Sam Cooke, when he was nearly killed in a car accident. He was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital and was in a coma for more than five days.

But Rawls’ near-death experience didn’t cause him to celebrate himself as a mortal who had cheated the Grim Reaper, but to humble himself as a man who had been given back his life with a chance to make it more meaningful.

According to information on the UNCF Website, Rawls once said: “I really got a new life out of that. I saw a lot of reasons to live. I began to learn acceptance, direction, understanding and perception –--all the elements that had been sadly lacking in my life.”

Compare Rawls’ transformation to that of 50 Cent. I hate to keep picking on Fiddy, but it seems to me that he -- as well as many of his other gangsta rap colleagues -– never learn anything good from their brushes with death. All they seem to learn is that the more violent and extreme they are, the more money they can make. They’ve found a fortune in hyping black dysfunction rather than in boosting black achievement.

And that’s too bad.

I don’t hold out hope that any of them will start to rap about the values of education anytime soon. But I do hope that someone like "American Idol" dynamo Fantasia Barrino, who is now pursuing her GED after spending years as a functional illiterate, will step into Rawls’ shoes. Even if she never leads the "Evening of Stars," I hope she will become a voice for the power of education to transform lives.

And as Rawls proved, you don’t need a college education for that. Just a voice -- and a passion -– that can persuade others of the value of one.
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site....eathersbee0111

Good commentary
 

^^
Particularly when Ms. Weathersbee nailed the liege lord of the G-g-g-g-nit!! :rolleyes: Again, Fiddy is not fit to carry Lou Rawls' music stand.

Yes, it was. Those students at the UNCF sponsered sites should really thank Mr. Rawls for his efforts. It paved the way for what Tom Joyner does today for ALL HBCUs.