Axe Wielding Maniac

The first secular song of Lou Rawls I remember was Tobacco Road I immediately started to train my voice to slide up and down the four octaves that he traversed with such style and ease My uncle Sylvester described Lou’s voice as polished gravel wrapped in silk. He was at home dragging bass up through the baritones and stretching second tenors out into falsettos. On the day before my 54^th birthday my musical mentor dies at age 72. as a teenager I envisioned his funeral as laid out in the song St James Infirmary

“When I die I want you to dress me in straight laced shoes, a box back coat and a Stetson hat, and put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch chain so all the boys’ll I died standing pat.”

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