Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964),[1] professionally known as Sam Cooke, was an American recording artist, singer-songwriter and entrepreneur generally considered among the greatest of all time.[3]
Influential as both a singer and composer,[4] he is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and importance within popular music.
His pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Billy Preston and popularized the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown.[5][6][7]
AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was "the inventor of soul music", and possessed "an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed."[8]
Cooke had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, plus three more posthumously.
Major hits like "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World", and "Twistin' the Night Away" 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.
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.[9]
On December 11, 1964, at the age of 33, Cooke was fatally shot by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California.
After an inquest, the courts ruled Cooke's death to be a justifiable homicide. Since that time, the circumstances of his death have been called into question by Cooke's family and his wide circle of friends and acquaintances.
| Sam Cooke | |
|---|---|
Sam Cooke
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Samuel Cook[1] |
| Also known as | Dale Cook |
| Born | January 22, 1931 Clarksdale, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Origin | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died |
December 11, 1964 (aged 33) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California |
| Genres | Soul, gospel, rhythm and blues |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, entrepreneur |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, guitar |
| Years active | 1951[2]–1964 |
| Labels | Specialty, Keen, RCA |
| Associated acts | The Singing Children, Otis Redding, The Highway Q.C.'s, The Soul Stirrers, J. W. Alexander, Lou Rawls, Bobby Womack |
Early life and career
Main article: The Soul Stirrers
Cooke was born "Cook" in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He later added an "e" onto the end of his name, though the reason for this is disputed.[10] He was one of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Annie Mae.
He had a brother, L.C., who some years later would become a member of the doo-wop band Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents.
The family moved to Chicago in 1933. Cooke attended Doolittle Elementary and Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago, the same school that Nat "King" Cole had attended a few years earlier.[10]
Sam Cooke began his career with his siblings in a group called The Singing Children when he was 9.
He first became known as lead singer with the Highway QC's as a teenager joining at the age of 14. During this time, Cooke befriended fellow gospel singer and neighbor Lou Rawls, who sang in a rival gospel group.
In 1950, Cooke replaced gospel tenor Reubert H. Harris as lead singer of the gospel group The Soul Stirrers, founded by Harris.
Under Cooke's leadership, the group signed with Specialty Records,
where their first recording was for the song "Jesus Gave Me Water" in
1951.
They also recorded other gospel tracks, such as "Peace in the
Valley", "How Far Am I From Canaan?", "Jesus Paid the Debt" and "One
More River", among many other gospel songs, some of which he wrote.[2]
Cooke was often credited for bringing gospel music to the attention of a
younger crowd of listeners, mainly girls who would rush to the stage
when the Soul Stirrers hit the stage just to get a glimpse of Cooke.[11]
Crossover pop success
Cooke in Billboard magazine
His first pop/soul single was "Lovable" (1956), which was a remake of the gospel song "Wonderful" and was released under the alias "Dale Cook"[12]
in order not to alienate his gospel fan base; there was a considerable
stigma against gospel singers performing secular music.
However, it
fooled no one[13]—Cooke's unique and distinctive vocals were easily recognized.
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.
In 1957, Cooke appeared on ABC's The Guy Mitchell Show. That same year, he signed with Keen Records.
His first release, "You Send Me",[note 1][12][14] spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song also had mainstream success, spending three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart.[15]
In 1961, Cooke started his own record label, SAR Records, with J.W. Alexander and his manager, Roy Crain.[16]
The label soon included The Simms Twins, The Valentinos (who was Bobby Womack and his brothers), Bobby Womack and Johnnie Taylor.
Cooke then created a publishing imprint and management firm before leaving Keen to sign with RCA Victor. One of his first RCA singles was the hit "Chain Gang".
It reached No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart and was followed by more hits, including "Sad Mood", "Cupid", "Bring it on Home to Me" (with Lou Rawls on backing vocals), "Another Saturday Night" and "Twistin' the Night Away".[citation needed]
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.
He was a prolific songwriter and wrote most of the songs he
recorded.
He also had a hand in overseeing some of the song
arrangements.
In spite of releasing mostly singles, 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.[citation needed]
Cooke in Billboard magazine
Marriages
Cooke was married twice.[17]
Cooke's first marriage was to singer-dancer Dolores Mohawk, who was killed in an auto accident in Fresno, California in 1959. Although he and Mohawk were divorced, Cooke paid his ex-wife's funeral expenses.[17]
Cooke and his second wife, Barbara, had three children: Linda (b 1953); Tracy (b 1960); and Vincent (1961 - 1963).[17]
Death
Cooke died at the age of 33 on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel at 9137 South Figueroa Street, in Los Angeles, California.
Answering separate reports of a shooting and of a kidnapping at the
motel, police found Cooke's body, clad only in a sports jacket and shoes
but no shirt, pants or underwear.
He had sustained a gunshot wound to
the chest, which was later determined to have pierced his heart.[18]
The motel's manager, Bertha Franklin, said she had shot Cooke in
self-defense after he broke into her office residence and attacked her.
Her account was immediately questioned and disputed by friends and
acquaintances.[19]
The official police record states that Franklin fatally shot Cooke, who had checked in earlier that evening.[20]
Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's
office-apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and a sports
coat, demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied
him to the hotel.
Franklin said 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 she
then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life.
Cooke was struck once in the torso
and, according to Franklin, he exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me", before
mounting a last charge at her. She said she beat him over his head with a
broomstick before he finally fell, mortally wounded by the gunshot.
The motel's owner, Evelyn Carr,[note 2] claimed that she had been on the telephone with Franklin at the time of the incident.[10]
Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing
conflict and gunshot.
Carr called the police to request that officers go
to the motel, telling them 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 had.
Boyer had called the
police from a telephone booth near the motel, telling them she had just
escaped 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 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 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 from the motel before the manager ever opened
the door.
She said she then put her clothing back on, hid Cooke's
clothing, went to a telephone booth, and called police.
Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between her and
Cooke that night; however, her story has long been called into question.
Inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by
other witnesses, as well as circumstantial evidence,[note 3][21][22]
suggest that Boyer may have gone willingly to the motel with Cooke,
then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him,
rather than to escape an attempted rape.[10][20]
However, questions about Boyer's role were beyond the scope of the
inquest, the purpose of which was only to establish the circumstances of
Franklin's role in the shooting.[10]
Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing, and
the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, provided a
plausible explanation to the inquest jurors for Cooke's bizarre
behavior and state of dress.
In addition, because Carr's testimony corroborated Franklin's version of events, and because both Boyer and Franklin later passed lie detector tests,[10][23][24] the coroner's jury ultimately accepted Franklin's explanation and returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.[13]
With that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.[10]
Some of Cooke's family and supporters, however, have rejected Boyer's
version of events, as well as those given by Franklin and Carr.
They
believe there was a conspiracy to murder Cooke, and that the murder took
place in some manner entirely different from the three official
accounts.[25][26][27][10][28][29][10][30]
Singer Etta James
viewed Cooke's body before his funeral, and questioned the accuracy of
the official version of events.
She wrote that the injuries she observed
were well beyond the official account of Cooke having fought Franklin
alone.
James wrote that Cooke was so badly beaten that his head was
nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed,
and his nose mangled.[31]
No concrete evidence supporting a criminal conspiracy has been presented to date.[28][29]
Aftermath
Grave of Sam Cooke, in the Garden of Honor, Forest Lawn Glendale
The first funeral service for Cooke was held in Chicago at A.R Leak Funeral Home, where thousands of fans had lined up for more than four city blocks to view his body.[17]
Afterward, his body was flown back to Los Angeles for a second service
at the Mount Sinai Baptist Church, which included a much-heralded
performance of "Angels Keep Watching Over Me" by Ray Charles.
Cooke was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[17]
Two singles and an album were released in the month after his death.
One of the singles, "Shake", reached the top ten of both the pop and R&B charts.
"A Change is Gonna Come", considered a classic of Civil Rights Era Protest Music[32] was a top 40 pop hit, and top ten R&B hit.
The album, also titled Shake, reached the number one spot for R&B albums. After Cooke's death, his widow, Barbara, married Bobby Womack.
Cooke's daughter, Linda, later married Womack's brother, Cecil.[16]
Bertha Franklin said she received numerous death threats after
shooting Cooke.
She left her position at the Hacienda Motel and did not
publicly disclose where she had moved.[33]
After being cleared by the coroner's jury, she sued Cooke's estate,
citing physical injuries and mental anguish suffered as a result of
Cooke's attack.
Her lawsuit sought US$200,000 in compensatory and
punitive damages.[33]
Barbara Womack countersued Franklin on behalf of the estate, seeking
$7,000 in damages to cover Cooke's funeral expenses.
Elisa Boyer
provided testimony in support of Franklin in the case.
In 1967, a jury
ruled in favor of Franklin on both counts, awarding her $30,000 in
damages.[34]
Grave of Sam Cooke, in the Garden of Honor, Forest Lawn Glendale
Posthumous honors
- In 1986, Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[35]
- In 1987, Cooke was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[36]
- In 1999, Cooke was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 16th on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[37][38]
- In 2008, Cooke was named the fourth "Greatest Singer of All Time" by Rolling Stone.[39]
- In June 2011, the city of Chicago renamed a portion of East 36th
Street near Cottage Grove Avenue as the honorary "Sam Cooke Way" to
remember the singer near a corner where he hung out and sang as a
teenager.[40]
- In 2013 Cooke was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of
Fame in Cleveland, Ohio at Cleveland State Univ. The founder of the
Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame Museum LaMont Robinson said he was
the greatest singer ever to sing. The Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of
Fame Museum will be built in Cooke's hometown of Clarksdale, MS.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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