Lou Rawls - Nobody But Lou (1965/2018)

It isn't hard to discern what veteran jazz bandleader Benny Carter had in mind in arranging and conducting Lou Rawls' fourth Capitol album (following Stormy Monday [1962], Black and Blue [1963], and Tobacco Road [1964]). Carter's conception simply was that the 29-year-old Rawls was a young Joe Williams and should be treated as such. The idea is logical enough; Rawls, a Chicago native like Williams, also possessed a deep, rich voice with a bit of grit at the bottom. Accordingly, Carter wrote arrangements that echoed the blues-jazz style of Count Basie and His Orchestra (for which Williams had sung before going out on his own) and conducted a horn-filled big band to play behind Rawls in swinging style. Although he had actually come out of a gospel, not a jazz, background, Rawls handled the arrangements just fine, swinging lightly and singing warmly. At any given moment, it was easy to suppose you were listening to Williams. And Carter left plenty of room for the band to have solos. The result was an excellent session, if one not likely to break Rawls out to a pop or R&B audience. That would begin to happen over the next year, and Nobody But Lou would stand as the last of Rawls' albums before his music took a more commercial direction as he began to emerge from Williams' shadow and be himself.