| Stormy Monday | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Lou Rawls |
| Cover: | StormymondayRawls.jpg |
| Released: | 1962 |
| Recorded: | February 5–12, 1962 |
| Studio: | Capitol (Los Angeles) |
| Genre: | R&B, vocal jazz |
| Length: | 40:49 (Original LP) 45:34 (CD reissue) |
| Label: | Capitol 1714 |
| Producer: | Nick Venet |
| Next Title: | Black and Blue |
| Next Year: | 1963 |
Stormy Monday, also known as I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water, is the debut album of R&B singer Lou Rawls, released in 1962 on Capitol Records. Recorded in two sessions in February 1962, the album features a number of blues and jazz standards chosen by Rawls and backed by the Les McCann Trio.[1] Stormy Monday was reissued in 1990 by Blue Note records.
Excerpt from the album liner notes:
In 1962, when this album was made and when he turned 26, Lou Rawls' rich baritone was unknown, except to a few gospel music fans and Hollywood hipsters who caught his act at local night clubs like P.J.'s, The Troubador, Shelly Manne's Manne-Hole or Brother's on Santa Monica and Vine. A year earlier, Capitol A&R man Nick Venet had heard Rawls at Pandora's Box Coffee Shop, where Rawls was playing there for $10 a night plus pizza in late 1959, and signed him to the label.[2] One stillborn single emerged before Lou had the brainstorm to do an album of blues and jazz standards, backed by then up-and-comer Les McCann and his trio, who were performing nearby at The Bit on Sunset Boulevard. Before his Grammy-winning album Love Is a Hurtin' Thing, Stormy Monday was the first of more than 20 other albums Rawls would record on that label in only a decade.[3]