Lou was that stellar voice which shouted out the background “yeahs” on Cooke’s ‘62 classic Bring It On Home To Me.

In later interviews, Lou described his brush with death as a life-changing experience.Īfter recovering from the accident that sidelined him for a year, Lou began performing secular music in small venues around the city. He suffered a three-month memory loss after the accident, and it took a year to recover from it fully. Lou, on the other hand, ended up in a coma from a brain concussion for five days and was even pronounced dead. The driver was killed.Ĭooke sustained only minor injuries from the crash. Louis, Lou, Cooke, and their driver Eddie Cunningham collided with a truck. After his military discharge two years later, Lou briefly joined another gospel group, the Pilgrim Travelers, along with Cooke. Lou took a break from his singing career in ‘56 to enlist as a paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. The group earned a reputation as being one of the most elusive of gospel’s golden era because constant lineup changes plagued them. Lou joined The Chosen Gospel Singers in 1953.

The group members sang in the tradition of jubilee quartets and helped to launch the singing careers of several secular stars, including Lou, Johnny Taylor, and Sam Cooke. In 1951, he replaced Cooke as a singer with the gospel group Highway QCs. In ‘50, Lou made his recording debut with the Holy Wonders on Move In the Room. Sam took on the role of Lou’s mentor and friend until his untimely death at age 33. Lou decided to embark on a career as a singer and eventually joined The Teenage Kings of Harmony with his school friend Sam Cooke, who was four years his senior.

He listened to popular music as a teenager and loved frequenting shows at Chicago’s famed Regal Theater that played host to numerous famous African-American performers like Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock, and Billy Eckstine. Lou’s grandmother, who attended a baptist church, introduced him to singing at age 7. A young Lou Rawlsīorn Louis Allan Rawls on December 1, 1935, he was raised by his paternal grandmother on the south side of Chicago. The commanding baritone who exuded sophistication had a celebrated career as a recording artist with more than 70 albums, three Grammy Awards, 13 Grammy nominations, one platinum album, five gold albums, and a gold single. Lou also had crossover appeal, so his vocal gift was lauded by both Black and white audiences. The late performer Frank Sinatra summed up the soul, jazz, and blues vocalist with the four-octave range best when he once said, “Lou had the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game.” When the velvet-voiced crooner, Lou Rawls, sang a song, his smooth vocal stylings were immediately recognizable.

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