LOU wrapped us in that old sweet-soul smoochie-woochie love-stuff. His
warm, honeyed voice offered to put some move in our groove; some dip in
our hip; pep in our step, a little slide in our glide. And by Saturday
night's end, many of the ladies in the house had felt impelled to scoot
down to the front of the stalls where they grooved their hips, and
pepped, and shimmied, and glided and slided and swayed, linking hands
above their heads with other ladies.
That's what Lou can do. Midway between the voices of Nat King Cole and
Barry White, Lou Rawls's majestic bass-baritone is both courtly and
raunch-soaked. Lou uses his voice and his jazzer's instinct to make
simple blues songs sound sophisticated and ironic, self-mocking rather
than full of self-pity.
Lou chuckles his liquid chuckle a lot, palpably at ease with himself.
All too rarely Lou shows that he can ride a dark, brooding, and
distinctly funky vibe, too. He breathed fresh life into old chestnuts,
transforming them into evergreens. The Way You Look Tonight; At Last;
Stormy Monday. He took the worst song in the world -- Send In The Clowns
-- and gently rent it asunder, making it whole and good.
Lou makes everything he does seem effortless. What he can't do, as he
demonstrated on his old mate Sam Cooke's Bring It On Home To Me, is
embody raw pleading. But when you're able to do what Lou Rawls does, you
don't have to beg. Folk just come a-runnin'.
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