Rawls was born on 1st December 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. His father abandoned his family and Lou was raised by his grandmother. His first meeting with music was when he was seven years old, in a Baptist church choir. He was mostly influenced by the Chicago Regal theatre where he had the opportunity to see the best in black entertainment. Billy Eckstine and Arthur Prysock were only two of the best that Lou saw. He and classmate, Sam Cooke , would harmonize in the school lavatory. He graduated from Dunbar Tech. School and joined the touring gospel singing group, the Pilgrim Travelers. He left the group in 1956 and joined the US Army and became a Sergeant with the Screaming Eagle Paratroopers. In 1958, he was involved in a serious auto accident that killed one and Rawls was pronounced dead on on the way to the hospital. Lou remained in a coma for over five days and suffered a memory loss for several months. Sam Cooke was also in the automobile and was left uninjured. Rawls was first noticed by Capitol Records producer Nick Benet after noticing his four octave range while performing at a Pandora's Los Angeles coffee shop. He went on to perform at a number of LA clubs and later made his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 1959 with Dick Clark . He went solo in 1964 and has won four Grammys. In the mid 70s, he joined the Anheuser Busch Brewery as a corporate spokesman. Since 1980, he has presented a series of world wide concerts for American military bases that were co-sponsored by Anheuser Busch, the USO, and the US Dept. Of Defense. During Christmas of 1983, he toured US bases in the Phillipines, Korea and Japan. He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for black colleges and, every year, he sponsors a celebrity golf tournament in LA to raise money for the United Negro College Fund. South Wentworth Street in Chicago was renamed Lou Rawls Drive in his honor. The talented Rawls is also the singing voice of the animated fickle feline "Garfield".

Graduate of Dunbar High School in Chicago.In November 1958, he and singer Sam Cooke were in an automobile accident in Arkansas, USA. They were injured and their chauffeur was killed.Was awarded an honorary doctorate at Florida Memorial College in Miami, Sept 21, 2002Went to high school with Sam Cooke .Has a four-octave range.Praised by Frank Sinatra for having "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game".Released from Bernalillo County Jail (Albuquerque, New Mexico) after being arrested on one count of battery against his companion, Nina Inman. (16 January 2003)Ex-companion Margaret Schaffer filed a lawsuit against Rawls for $12 million, claiming he backed out of a verbal agreement to support her financially even if they broke up. (27 March 2003)A paratrooper in the Army's 101st Airborne Division (1955 - 1958)He and his wife and manager Nina, who was 37 years younger than Lou, had a baby boy, Aiden Allen Rawls, in Akron, Ohio, on January 10, 2005. The baby weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces. Nina and Lou used in vitro fertilization and another woman as the birth mother.On 19 October, 2005, while listening to an Akron, Ohio radio morning program ("Matt Patrick and Angela In the Morning" on WKDD), Lou and Nina Rawls heard about a local woman who was about to lose her home after coping with medical bills for her special needs son left her in arrears on her mortgage. The couple immediately telephoned the radio station to donate whatever amount of money it took to bring the woman's mortgage to "Current" status.His career was comprised of more than 70 albums, three Grammys, 13 Grammy nominations, one platinum album, five gold albums and a gold single.His telethon, which served as a fundraiser for the United Negro College and other black colleges, has raised more than $200 million since 1979. More than 10,000 scholarships have been provided.Some sources list 1935 as Lou's birth year but a domestic violence case revealed his birth date to be December 1, 1933.He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6931 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.Early in his career backed up Sam Cooke on Sam's signature hit "Bring It On Home To Me".His performance of "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine", during the 1977 Grammy Awards was disrupted by a coughing fit. He gamely kept performing and managed to finish the song.Despite having absolutely nothing to do with the film itself, he appeared on the DVD commentary track for the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004).