Feeling Good

Lou Rawls recorded 'Feeling Good' for his 1968 Capitol album Feelin' Good, produced by David Axelrod and arranged and conducted by H.B. Barnum, with Rawls backed by a full studio ensemble in Los Angeles. The track was part of an album that marked a harder-edged, funkier direction for Rawls on Capitol, with Axelrod pushing the rhythm section into more propulsive territory while Rawls's baritone commanded the Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse composition with characteristic authority. Rawls's reading of the Newley-Bricusse standard stands as one of the more soulfully muscular interpretations of a song that has attracted dozens of artists, and the Axelrod-produced album it anchors has become a prized collector item for crate diggers drawn to its fusion of soul, funk, and brass.