RIP Lou Rawls

LOS ANGELES - Lou Rawls, the velvet-voiced singer who started as a church choir boy and went on to sell more than 40 million albums and win three Grammy Awards in a career that spanned nearly five decades and a range of genres, has died, his publicist said. He was 72.

Rawls died early Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was hospitalized last month for treatment of lung and brain cancer, his publicist Paul Shefrin said. His wife Nina was at his bedside when he died, Shefrin said. The family and Shefrin said Rawls was 72, although other records indicate he was
70.
msnbc