Lou Rawls Battling Cancer

Lou Rawls has been battling lung cancer for a year, and brain cancer since May, the R&B singer's manager and estranged wife Nina said Thursday. "By his doctor's admission, he is not expected to live much more," she stated during a marriage annulment hearing in Arizona.

"Don't count me out, brother," the seventy-year-old Rawls countered from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in an interview with the Arizona Republic. "There's been many people who have been diagnosed with this kind of thing, and they're still jumpin' and pumpin'."

The singer said that he quit smoking regularly thirty-five years ago and has undergone both traditional and alternative medical treatment for lung cancer.

According to court papers, Rawls is seeking an annulment to his two-year marriage to protect thousands of dollars of assets that his wife "absconded with." His wife, however, maintains that she transferred $350,000 into an account to keep the money from Rawls' two daughters.

The three-time Grammy winner has sold more than 40 million albums throughout his four-decade-long career, with hits such as "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" (1966) and "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" (1976). Rawls was also honored last year with an honorary doctorate from Wilberforce University for his service over the past twenty-five years and helping raise more than $200 million for the United Negro College Fund.

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Song Stories

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette | 1973

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."

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