Johnny Rawls’ new album, Waiting For The Train, will be released by Catfood Records in September 2017. Produced by three-time Grammy winner Jim Gaines, backed by his 8-piece studio group, The Rays, he just gets better with age. His last CD, Tiger In A Cage, reached #1 on the Living Blues Radio Chart and stayed at #1 for 14 weeks on the Roots Music Reports Soul Blues Chart. It also made the Downbeat Magazine Critics’ Best of the Year List just as his previous two albums did.
Raised in Purvis, MS, Johnny, while still in high school, was already backing such stars as Z.Z. Hill, Little Johnny Taylor, Joe Tex and the Sweet Inspirations. In his early 20s, he was hired as the band director for O.V. Wright and stayed with him until O.V.’s death in 1979. He kept the band together backing Little Johnny Taylor and other soul greats until 1985 when he launched his solo career.
He won 2010 BMA Soul Album of the Year and all of his Catfood albums have been nominated for that award. Three have been Living Blues Critics’ Choice Southern Soul Album of the Year and he was selected Living Blues 2016 Male Blues Artist of the Year.
Rawls has again made a great album rooted in the tradition of Southern Soul but with his modern take on the genre. The originals are well-crafted songs sung by Johnny as only he can deliver a song. He also provides his own take on songs by Wilson Pickett, Syl Johnson, Tyrone Davis and Bob Dylan. He is one of the last of the great soul artists still touring and at the peak of his career.
