Jerry Lawson, decades-long leader of a cappella group the Persuasions, dead at 75
LOS ANGELES (AP) â Jerry Lawson, who for four decades was the lead singer of the eclectic cult-favorite a cappella group the Persuasions, has died. He was 75.
Lawson died Wednesday at a Phoenix hospice after a long illness, longtime friend and sometime Persuasions producer Rip Rense said.
Lawsonâs smooth baritone led the group of five and later six singers, who were revered as the âThe Kings of a Cappellaâ by their small but devoted fan base.
Through 25 albums the Persuasions recorded rock, blues, gospel and pop songs, all with no sound other than their own voices, long after the doo-wop era and long before the âPitch Perfectâ movies, when a cappella was rare.
âThirty-eight years and we still ainât got no band, man!â Lawson told The Associated Press in 2000. âThatâs the story right there.â
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They had many famous fans including Rod Stewart, the Grateful Deadâs Jerry Garcia, the members of Boyz II Men and Frank Zappa, who gave their career a boost when he discovered them in the late 1960s.
âAfter working together at the Hurricane Katrina Benefit Concert, I admired the undeniable depth in Jerryâs big voice,â Stewart said in a statement. âA true soul singer.â
They began as a casual and nameless collection of singers on the basketball courts and front stoops of Brooklyn in 1962, with Lawson bringing the warm, friendly voice he developed singing gospel songs during his youth in Apopka, Florida.
âIt was just five guys who used to stand on the corner or go down to the subway station every night and just do this,â Persuasions member Jimmy Hayes told the AP in 2000.
Joseph Russell, Herbert Rhoad and Jayotis Washington rounded out the original quintet.
They got their break when Zappa signed them to his independent label for their first album in 1969.
The Persuasions performed with everyone from Liza Minnelli to Joni Mitchell to the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and covered the songs of Motown, Sam Cooke and Paul Simon.
The eclecticism that made them so beloved also kept them from reaching pop stardom.
Music executives never knew how to market them and commercial radio had no clue what niche to stick them in.
âTheyâve never gotten their due,â Rense told the AP in 2000. âTheyâre the greatest, most enduring American a cappella group. In another country like Japan theyâd be declared a living treasure.â
Lawson left the group in 2002. A few years later he joined a much younger group of San Francisco acapella singers that had based themselves on the Persuasions to form âJerry Lawson and the Talk of the Town.â
The group released an album, co-produced by Lawson and his wife, in 2007, and in 2011 they appeared on NBCâs music competition show, âThe Sing-Off.â
In 2015, he released his only solo album, âJust a Mortal Man.â
A documentary on Lawson is in the works and is expected to be released later this year.
He is survived by wife Julie Lawson and daughters Yvette and Wanda Dawson.
At his request, no funeral will be held, his family said in a statement.
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