Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. What Makes the Ending So Sad - Lou Rawls, Cooke, Sam
2. Blues Is a Woman - Lou Rawls, Rawls, Lou
3. Willow Weep for Me - Lou Rawls, Ronell, Ann
4. Black and Blue - Lou Rawls, Brooks, Harry
5. Kansas City - Lou Rawls, Leiber, Jerry
6. Tobacco Road - Lou Rawls, Loudermilk, John D.
7. Stormy Monday - Lou Rawls, Walker, T-Bone
8. St. James Infirmary - Lou Rawls, Primrose, Joe
9. I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water - Lou Rawls, Miller, Eddie [Pian
10. The Shadow of Your Smile - Lou Rawls, Mandel, Johnny
11. Street Corner Hustler's Blues - Lou Rawls, Rawls, Lou
12. World of Trouble - Lou Rawls, Brown, D. Jr.
13. Memory Lane - Lou Rawls, Alexander, James W.
14. Old Man's Memories - Lou Rawls, Rawls, Lou
15. It Was a Very Good Year - Lou Rawls, Drake, Ervin
16. A Whole Lotta Woman - Lou Rawls, Alexander, James W.

Disc 2:

1. Love Is a Hurtin' Thing - Lou Rawls, Raleigh, Ben
2. You Can Bring Me All Your Heartaches - Lou Rawls, Raleigh, Ben
3. Trouble Down Here Below - Lou Rawls, Anderson, J
4. Dead End Street - Lou Rawls, Axelrod, David
5. Dead End Street - Lou Rawls, Axelrod, David
6. Show Business - Lou Rawls, Rawls, Lou
7. Show Business - Lou Rawls, Rawls, Lou
8. Scotch & Soda - Lou Rawls, Guard, D
9. My Ancestors - Lou Rawls, Tubert, Robert
10. Hang Ups - Lou Rawls, Mann, Barry
11. You're Good for Me - Lou Rawls, Davis, M.
12. Soul Serenade - Lou Rawls, Dixon, Luther
13. Down Here on the Ground - Lou Rawls, Schifrin, Lalo
14. Your Good Thing (Is About to End) - Lou Rawls, Hayes, Isaac
15. I Can't Make It Alone - Lou Rawls, Goffin, Gerry
16. You've Made Me So Very Happy - Lou Rawls, Gordy, Berry Jr.
17. Bring It Home - Lou Rawls, Cooke, Sam

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84920 in Music
• Released on: 2000-06-06
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

Fairly Comprehensive Anthology ...
... as far as his Capitol years are concerned. And that's the key when it comes to some of the criticism elsewhere about it not being "complete." It's also worth noting that, despite the indication in the Product Details above that it comes from a label called "The Right Stuff." the copy in front of me, exact in every other detail, says "2000 Capitol Records, Inc."

It has excellent sound reproduction on the 33 tracks and in the insert are 8 full pages chronicling Lou's years with Capitol written by David Nathan, author of The Soulfull Divas and a contributing writer to Billboard. Another nice shot of Lou then precedes a re-listing of the tracks showing, where applicable, the albums in which each originally appeared (note that tracks 1 on Disc 1 and 8 on Disc 2 were previously unissued), but there are no details regarding his 12 Capitol hit singles, alhough all but two are included.

Where it loses 1 star in my book is the exclusion of his first hit single which came in June 1965 on Capitol 5424. His cover of the old Paul Whiteman 1922 hit, Three O'Clock In The Morning, was not a huge hit by any means, reaching just # 83 on the Billboard Pop Hot 100 and # 27 Adult Contemporary (AC) b/w Nothing Really Feels The Same, but it was a charter and it was his first, so leaving it out of an "anthology" is unforgiveable.

However, his initial R&B hit is here, The Shadow Of Your Smile on Capitol 5655 b/w Southside Blues, and culled from his 1966 LP Lou Rawls Live! And it was a minor # 33 on those charts in July and did not even crack the Hot 100. His big breakthrough came that fall when Love Is A Hurtin' Thing rose to # 1 R&B and # 13 Hot 100 b/w Memory Lane on Capitol 5709. That B-side is the only one included in this "anthology." He then closed out 1966 with the # 35 R&B/# 55 Hot 100 You Can Bring Me All Your Heartaches b/w A Woman Who's A Woman on Capitol 5790.

1967 started off slowly when Trouble Down Here Below could only manage an anaemic # 92 Hot 100 and was shut out of the R&B listings in February b/w The Life That I Lead on Capitol 5824, but it picked up in April when Dead End Street Monologue/Dead End Street peaked at # 3 R&B and # 29 Hot 100 on Capitol 5869 b/w Yes It Hurts - Doesn't It? Here they give you the monologue and song on two separate tracks on Disc 2. That summer, Show Business became a minor # 25 R&B/# 45 Hot 100 entry b/w When Love Goes Wrong on Capitol 5941.

Another missing from this "anthology" is his Christmas 1967 interpretation of The Little Drummer Boy, which made it to # 2 on the Billboard Christmas Charts b/w A Child With A Toy on Capitol 2026. He was then off any singles charts until September 1968 when Down Here On The Ground, from the film Cool Hand Luke, struggled to a # 69 Hot 100 b/w I'm Satisfied (The Duffy Theme) on Capitol 2252, and it would be another full year before he returned with Your Good Thing (Is About To End) which topped out at # 3 R&B, # 18 Hot 100 and # 35 AC late in the summer of 1969 b/w Season Of The Witch on Capitol 2550.

In November 1959, I Can't Make It Alone petered out at # 33 R&B and # 63 Hot 100 b/w a cover of the Eddy Arnold hit, Make The World Go Away, on Capitol 2668. In the early spring of 1970 his cover of the 1967 Brenda Holloway/1960 Blood, Sweat & Tears hit, You've Made Me So Very Happy, finished at # 31 AC, # 32 R&B and # 95 Hot 100 b/w Let's Burn Down The Cornfield on Capitol 2734. He then closed out his Capitol string of hit singles in August when his cover of the 1962 Sam Cooke smash, Bring It On Home (on which Lou had provided backing vocals), topped out at # 45 R&B/# 96 Hot 100 b/w Can You Dig It/Take Me For What I Am on Capitol 2856.

Lou would, of course, go on to post another 21 hit singles for several labels (MGM, Bell, Philadelphia Int'l, Epic, and Gamble & Hull to 1987, including what would turn out to be his best ever, in terms of chart success, with You'll Never Find ANother Love Like Mine, which hit # 1 R&B and AC and # 2 Hot 100 in summer 1976 for Phildelphia Int'l, his first there.

Not bad as label-limited anthologies go, but it could have been a 5-star Capitol release with the inclusion of those two missing hits and maybe another B0side or two.

Incomplete--Not an "Antholody"
Lou Rawls had a 30 year career in show business. This disk spans only 20 of those years, and misses the last 10 when he was so productive and had most of his well known hits. I'm not knocking the tracks on this disk, nor the quality, but to me an "Anthology" is a disk which spans an entire career of a singer or group. If this is what you are looking for, you need to buy two disks. Go ahead and get this one, its perfectly fine for what it has, but get The Best Lou Rawls: You'll Never Find a Love Like Mine" which is due out on Amazon on June 6, 2006, and contains his more popular Capitol releases.

THE Chicago Cool
Let me say right now that this anthology covers Rawls' career from 1962 until 1970 when he recorded for Capitol Records; those looking for the later Gamble & Huff stuff or his best-known hit "You'll Never Find"; well, you'll never find them here. You will find all kinds of nuggets from the early days though; starting with a previously unreleased version of Sam Cooke's "What Makes The Ending So Sad" with the great Les McCann on piano, then progresses into a couple of cuts from his album "Stormy Monday", again with McCann. The CD, though, really reaches its stride with the six selections taken off 1966's "Lou Rawls Live!" That includes the great monologue "Street Corner Hustler's Blues"; one of a couple of the famous monologues he recorded; on that one he talks about the old days growing up around 47th and what was then South Parkway (now Martin Luther King Drive) on the South Side of Chicago. He snaps out his stories with street-smart prose and as sharp as any rapper, then segues into the appropriate tune, and the audience loves every minute of it.

Later selections on this 2-CD set include cuts taken from albums such as "Lou Rawls Soulin'", (which contained "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing"); "Lou Rawls Carryin' On!", "Too Much", "That's Lou", "Feelin' Good", "You're Good For Me" and a couple others. His distinctive big, soulful voice adds a different feel to even standards like "It Was A Very Good Year", "Stormy Monday" and "Willow Weep For Me". In short, he could sing pretty much anything and make it work. Jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, you name it, and it's all here. He's truly among the giants of all the soul singers, and this CD is highly recommended.