Lou Rawls, the great baritone, died today. Very sad — Lou Rawls was the king of that buttery-smooth soul style.
I’m a fan of the great ’60s/’70s producer David Axelrod. This site sums up his sound well: “They sound like some funky symphonic soundtrack music with butter breakbeats galore.” (He’s become a favorite of cratedigger/hip-hop types in the last decade or so because those drum-heavy beats sample so damned well.) But a lot of Axelrod’s best work was done producing Lou Rawls records in the 1960s.
On Axelrod’s 2001 comeback album, Rawls sang on the closing track, “Loved Boy,” which was dedicated to Axelrod’s dead son. Man, Lou’s voice on that track will just rip your heart out — beaten and weary, a man staring up from the bottom of a well.
Here you can stream three songs from the recent Axelrod compilation The Edge, compiled by crabwalk.com fave Egon (who runs Stones Throw Records). The second track is Lou Rawls’ “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” and is lovely.