Customer Reviews

Love Songs

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3 star:		(1)
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Lou Rawls is most definitely at his romantic best on this CD. He gives some spellbinding renditions of such timeless standards as "Georgia On My Mind", "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever", "Autumn Leaves", "Gentle On My Mind" and "The Twelfth Of Never" among others. Once you listen to this CD, you will be forever and undoubtedly convinced of Lou's greatness as a romantic crooner.

The late Lou Rawls recorded several very fine but underpromoted albums for Epic Records from 1982-86. This compilation focuses primarily on these recordings with tracks like "Close Company", "In The Middle Of The Night", "The Lady In My Life", "Learn To Love Again", "It Never Entered My Mind" and several others being gorgeous Quiet Storm gems that deserved a much better fate. This long-deleted 2-CD set offers a nice retrospective of Lou's 1982-86 recordings.

Continuiung the smooth sound of one of the masters, this is a good one to add to your collection. Even when performing "cover" songs, Lou's distinctive voice makes it sound oh sooo goood.

This 1995 CD release of a 1990 album features the deep, clear, highly distinctive voice of one of the best song stylists to appear in the 1960s to 1980s, one that no less than Frank Sinatra described as "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game".

I recall when that voice first came to my attention, and that was in 1962 when his was the backing vocal on the double-sided Sam Cooke hit Bring It On Home To Me b/w Having A Party on RCA Victor. But Lou's fame came for Johnny Mercer's Capitol Records where his initial hit, a cover of the 1922 Paul Whiteman hit, Three O'Clock In The Morning, made a modest chart debut of # 27 Adult Contemporary (AC) and # 83 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in August 1965. The following summer, his version of The Shadow Of Your Smile, the theme from the film The Sandpipers, became his first R&B entry when it finished at # 33 in July.

After that, he would go on to post another 27 R&B hit singles, 19 on the Hot 100, and 11 on the AC charts, with six different labels, his last coming in 1987 with I Wish You Belonged To Me, a # 28 R&B on Gamble & Hull. Two of those he sings here - Love Is A Hurtin' Thing was a # 1 R&B/# 13 Hot 100 in the fall of 1966, and You've Made Me So Very Happy a # 31 AC/# 32 R&B and # 95 Hot 100 in 1970.

Just a glance at the 12 tracks will tell anyone who knows music that many are classics which defy being branded as "sappy pop" or "dentist's office music." There's McCartney-Lennon's Yesterday; the jazz classic Autumn Leaves which first came out as Les Feuilles Mortes by Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert, and which was adapted for North American audiences by Johnny Mercer; John Hartford's Gentle On My Mind; Georgia On My Mind by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael and now the Georgia State Song after being immortalized by the late, great Ray Charles; and Hank Williams' Cold, Cold Heart.

None of the others are "sappy" either as Lou gives each his own unique application. The sound quality is perfect and there is one page of liner notes which presumably appeared on the reverse of the original vinyl LP.

This great voice may have been silenced forever on January 6, 2006 insofar as new material is concerned, but it lives on in fine albums such as this.

I wanted a collection of songs by Lou Rawls but this isn't it. All the songs are overproduced - too much musicical effects, too much singing fast with finger snapping, too much in the jive mode. I've been slowly replacing the tunes in this album with the same songs by other artists.

Reminds me too much of Bill Murray's impersonation of a lounge musician.

If you're thinking about buying this CD because you love Rawls' amazing blues and jazz vocals, don't! Buy The Legendary Lou Rawls, Live!, or one of his many other fine releases instead. This CD is full of sappy pop songs, most of which belong in your dentist's office rather than your CD player.