Rawls was born in Chicago on December 1, 1933, and raised by his grandmother in the Ida B. Wells projects on the city\'s South Side. He began singing in the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church choir at the age of seven and later sang with local groups through which he met Sam Cooke, who was nearly three years older, and Curtis Mayfield.\n', '

After graduating from Dunbar Vocational High School, he sang briefly with Cooke in the Teenage Kings of Harmony, a gospel group, and then with the Holy Wonders. In 1951, he replaced Cooke in the Highway QC\'s after Cooke departed to join The Soul Stirrers in Los Angeles. Rawls was hired by the Chosen Gospel Singers and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined the Pilgrim Travelers.\n', '

In 1955, Rawls enlisted in the United States Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He left the All-Americans three years later as a sergeant and rejoined the Pilgrim Travelers (then known as the Travelers). In 1958, while touring the South with the Travelers and Sam Cooke, Rawls was in a car crash. He was pronounced dead before arriving at the hospital, where he stayed in a coma for five and a half days. He spent a year recuperating and several months before his memory returned. He considered the crash a life-changing event.\n', '

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