Lou Rawls: The Best of Lou Rawls: The Capitol Jazz & Blues Sessions

Like so many other blues-influenced pop singers, Rawls begins right from The Source, the family church, through the opening "Motherless Child, from The Soul Stirring Gospel Sound of the Pilgrim Travelers Featuring Lou Rawls (1962). Lovingly rendered with the Les McCann piano trio for Rawls' first record as a leader (Stormy Monday, 1962), Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child almost sounds written for the deep, warm blanket of this singer's profoundly comforting voice. The unmistakable heat and light of gospel music also permeates "Something Stirring in My Soul, as well as Rawls' seven-minute workout of Sam Cooke's "Somebody Have Mercy, recorded with the famously funky Muscle Shoals (Studio) Fame Gang in 1970.

While the tunes are mostly solid, some just work better than others. You'd think that "Georgia On My Mind would provide a great vehicle for Rawls' slow-burning voice, but this version from Tobacco Road (1963) is simply a mess: the horn section (led by Curtis Amy's soprano sax), Richard "Groove Holmes' organ solo and Ray Crawford's guitar solo all bump into each other behind, then spill over to overwhelm Rawls' vocal out front.

So skip that and instead dig Rawls' blues from days and nights spent learning his soulful craft in the blues and jazz juke joints of Los Angeles and his Chicago hometown: his toe-tapping stroll through "Nobody But Me ; a lively arrangement of "So Hard to Laugh, So Easy to Cry crowned by Howard Roberts' sharp blues guitar; his soulful in-concert walk down the memoried lanes of "Tobacco Road, where Tommy Strode's piano saunters into barrelhouse boogie and blues; and the set-ending trilogy of Big Bill Broonzy's "Mean Old World with two more Holiday tunes, "Long Gone Blues and "Fine and Mellow, all three recorded with Amy's sextet, previously unreleased, loose-grooved, and swinging fine and mellow indeed.

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