SAN DIEGO — Les McCann stood only 5 feet, 7 inches tall, but he was a towering figure when he sang and played piano. The rousing brand of soul-jazz he helped pioneer in the 1950s and ’60s inspired several generations of musicians, from Bonnie Raitt and Bill Withers to such hip-hop stars as the Notorious B.I.G., A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, who sampled McCann’s music on their own records. “If it’s done from the heart, people feel it,” McCann said in a 1986 San Diego Union interview. He died Friday at a Los Angeles hospital after developing pneumonia about one week…
