Sam Cooke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke recording in the studio.
Sam Cooke recording in the studio.
Background information
Birth name Sam Cook
Also known as Dale Cooke
Born January 22, 1931(1931-01-22)
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Origin Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died December 11, 1964 (aged 33)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genre(s) R&B, soul, gospel
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, entrepreneur
Instrument(s) Vocals, piano, Guitar
Years active 1950–1964
Label(s) Specialty, Keen, RCA
Associated acts The Soul Stirrers
Bobby Womack
Johnnie Taylor

Sam Cooke (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964) was a popular and influential American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Musicians and critics today recognize him as one of the founders of soul music, and as one of the most important singers in soul music history.[1] He has been called "the king of soul" by many, and while some may dispute this title, Sam Cooke's legacy is an extensive one and his impact on soul music is undeniable. He had 29 Top 40 hits in the U.S. between 1957 and 1965. He is therefore seen by many as "the creator" of the genre. Major hits like "You Send Me", "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World" and "Bring It on Home to Me" are some of his most popular songs.

Cooke was also among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career.[1] He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the Civil Rights Movement,[1] using his musical ability to bridge gaps between black and white audiences.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Sam Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He added an "e" onto the end of his name because he thought it added a touch of class. He was one of seven children of Annie Mae and the Reverend Charles Cook, a Baptist minister. The family moved to Chicago in 1933.

Cooke began his musical career as a member of a quartet with his siblings, The Singing Children, and, as a teenager, he was a member of the Highway QCs, a gospel group. In 1950, at the age of 19, he joined The Soul Stirrers and achieved significant success and fame within the gospel community.

His first pop single, "Lovable" (1956), was released under the alias of "Dale Cooke" in order to not alienate his fan base; there was a considerable taboo against gospel singers performing secular music. However, the alias failed to hide Cooke's unique and distinctive vocals. No one was fooled. Art Rupe, head of Specialty Records, the label of the Soul Stirrers, gave his blessing for Cooke to record secular music under his real name, but he was unhappy about the type of music Cooke and producer Bumps Blackwell were making. Rupe expected Cooke's secular music to be similar to that of another Specialty Records artist, Little Richard. When Rupe walked in on a recording session and heard Cooke covering Gershwin, he was quite upset. After an argument between Rupe and Blackwell, Cooke and Blackwell left the label(Greene, 2006).

In 1957, Cooke signed with Keen Records. His first release was "You Send Me", the B-side of his first Keen Single (the A-side was a reworking of George Gershwin's "Summertime".) which spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song also had massive mainstream success, spending three weeks at #1 on the Billboard pop chart. In addition to his success in writing his own songs and achieving mainstream fame — a truly remarkable accomplishment for an R&B singer at that time — Cooke continued to astonish the music business in the 1960s with the founding of his own label, SAR Records (Greene, 2006), which soon included The Simms Twins, The Valentinos, Bobby Womack, and Johnnie Taylor. Cooke then created a publishing imprint and management firm, then left Keen to sign with RCA Victor. One of his first RCA singles was the hit "Chain Gang." It reached #2 on the Billboard pop chart. This was followed by more hits, including "Sad Mood", "Bring it on Home to Me" (with Lou Rawls on backing vocals), "Another Saturday Night" and "Twistin' the Night Away".

Like most R&B artists of his time, Cooke focused on singles; in all he had 29 top 40 hits on the pop charts, and more on the R&B charts. In spite of this, he released a well received blues-inflected LP in 1963, Night Beat, and his most critically-acclaimed studio album Ain't That Good News, which featured five singles, in 1964. He was known for having written many of the most popular songs of all time in the genre, but is often not given credit for many of them by the general public[citation needed].

[edit] Death

Cooke died at the age of 33 on December 11, 1964, in Los Angeles, California. He was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Los Angeles, who claimed that he had threatened her, and that she killed him in self-defense. He had gone to the motel with a prostitute, and while he was in the shower she grabbed his clothes, and money, and left. Grabbing the clothes was to insure that he would not come out of the room to chase her. Cooke thought that she had gone to the manager's office and that that they were in it together, as the prostitute had suggested which motel to go to. The verdict was justifiable homicide, though many believe that crucial details did not come out in court, or were buried afterward. Cooke was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California.

Some posthumous releases followed, many of which became hits, including "A Change Is Gonna Come", an early protest song which is generally regarded as his greatest composition. After Cooke's death, his widow, Barbara, married Bobby Womack. Cooke's daughter, Linda, later married Bobby's brother, Cecil. Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986(Greene, 2006).

The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record[2] states that Cooke was shot dead by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her, demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me", before finally falling, mortally wounded.

According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing conflict and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.

A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.

Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.

Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Because of inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses as well as circumstantial evidence (e.g., cash that Cooke was reportedly carrying was never recovered, and Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him rather than to escape an attempted rape.

Ultimately, though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation, together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.[3]

However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder took place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder. No one has been able to provide any evidence of this, however.[4] [5] [6]

My brother was first class all the way. He would not check into a $3-a-night motel; that wasn't his style.

— Agnes Cooke-Hoskins, sister of Sam Cooke, attending the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 2005 tribute to Cooke.

In her autobiography, Rage To Survive, singer Etta James claimed that she viewed Cooke's body in the funeral home and that the injuries she observed were well beyond what could be explained by the official account of Franklin alone having fought with Cooke. James described Cooke as having been so badly beaten that his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose was mangled. Nevertheless, no solid, reviewable evidence supporting a conspiracy theory has been presented to date.

[edit] Legacy

Cooke's influence has been immense: even people who have never heard one of his records have still heard his voice and phrasing if they have listened to Rod Stewart or Southside Johnny.

Other rock artists with a notable Cooke heritage include The Animals, Simon and Garfunkel, Van Morrison, James Taylor, the Beatles (particularly John Lennon), John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, The Band, Terry Reid, Steve Perry, and numerous others, while R&B and soul artists indebted to Cooke include Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, David Ruffin, Bobby Womack, Johnnie Taylor, Lou Rawls, Al Green, The Temptations, Philippe Wynne, Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, Ben E. King, and many more.

[edit] Discography

For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see: Sam Cooke discography.

[edit] Hit US and UK singles

Year Title Chart positions
US R&B UK
1957 "You Send Me" #1 #1 #29
1957 "I'll Come Running Back to You" #18 #1
1959 "Only Sixteen" - - #23
1960 "Wonderful World" #12 #2 #27
1960 "Chain Gang" #2 #2 #9
1961 "Cupid" #17 #20 #7
1962 "Twistin' the Night Away" #9 #1 #6
1963 "Another Saturday Night" #10 #1 #23
1963 "Frankie and Johnny" #14 - #30
1965 "Shake" #7 #4
1986 "Wonderful World" (re-issue) - - #2
1986 "Another Saturday Night" (re-issue) - - #75

[edit] Hit US and UK albums

Year Title Chart positions
US UK
1957 Sam Cooke #16
1962 The Best of Sam Cooke #22
1963 Night Beat
1964 Ain't That Good News #34
1964 Sam Cooke at the Copa #29
1986 The Man and His Music #8
2003 The Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964 #30
2005 The Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964 (re-issue) #19

[edit] References

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)
  1. ^ a b c Greene, E. (2006). Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story From His Family's Perspective], Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing. ISBN 1-41206498-8
  2. ^ Wolff, Daniel. You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke, New York: William Morrow, 1995 ISBN 0688124038
  3. ^ Robinson, Louie. "The Tragic Death of Sam Cooke", Ebony, February 1965
  4. ^ Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick tackles another music legend: Sam Cooke
  5. ^ Gary James' Interview With Solomon Burke
  6. ^ Soul man, Sam Cooke's fulfilling late period
  7. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090329/soundtrack Witness, 1985 film soundtrack
  8. ^ The Immortals: The First Fifty. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
  9. ^ http://www.ourunclesam.com Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story From His Family's Perspective

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: