Blogs » On Another Note » This One's For Lou...

Subscribe


 
This One's For Lou...
By timoi in On Another Note
January 13, 2006

It’s been such a hectic pace for me lately, I totally forgot to mention the passing of Lou Rawls On January 6th. Sad to say, Mr. Rawls passed away due to cancer at the age of 72.

I find this interesting… Because as music evolves, sometimes greatness passes and will never be the same. You see, before we had what the modern American music industry considers “R&B” (music with no substance like “Black eyed peas- my humps” or “Rhianna- pon de replay”) R&B used to stand for rhythm and blues, and soul… well you actually used to have “soul” to sing “soul”.
Lou Rawls was part of a dying breed that has been deemed too old fashioned or “oldies”. The good news is that you can often find his music in a cheaper price range, the other side of the coin is, that the majority of 60’s soul and R&B helped define the soundtrack of a generation. Ask someone who grew up around these times, and most can recall with fondness the great tunes of Lou Rawls, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, etc… in a time period when racial tensions were high, it took the music of working class soul and feeling to pull us all together.

So it bugs me, when music is often considered “oldies”… I get more of a rush from “Love is a hurtin’ thing” than I ever could off of some pretty kid on MTV who has yet to live life.

Is there any good soul or R&B left? Actually, yeah there is… Anthony Hamilton strikes me as a really great modern singer, his song “Charlene” reminds me of a much older soul. There is a great neo-soul movement going on nowadays too… Maybe there is hope for the future of R&B… but it will take people stopping to listen instead of just buying what is spoon fed.