TABITHA BOOKS
The legend that is Sam Cooke
BY-------Graham Sclater
Sam Cooks, born Samuel Cook, was the son of a Baptist minister in Mississippi in January 1931.
Two years later the family moved to Chicago. Early on in his career he sang with his brother and
two sisters in a gospel group “The Singing Children” When he was fifteen, he joined an already
successful teenage gospel group “Highway QC’s,” where he remained until he was 19.
He was spotted by the manager of the “Soul Stirrers” and began his writing and recording career
with their releases on Speciality Records, many of which were to become gospel classics. The
group achieved incredible success with several hit records but after six years Cooke left the group
and the record label.
He was joined by their producer Bumps Blackwell and soon after they signed to Keen Records.
During that time, Cooke wrote and recorded five number One Hits many of which are still played a
cross the world today. They included: You Send Me, Win Your Love For me, Everybody Loves to Cha
Cha, Only Sixteen and (What) A Wonderful World.
Following his success in 1957 he signed with The William Morris Agency and appeared soon after on The Ed Sullivan Show and on ABC’s The Guy Mitchell Show when he sang You Send Me, which was originally the B side of Summertime. It spent six weeks at number One on the Billboard R & B chart before crossing a week over to mainstream chart. It immediately increased his earnings from $200 to $5,000 a week.
In March 1958 a much-heralded performance at the world-famous Copacabana turned out to be a disaster. This caused him to re-evaluate his musical career, staging and performance and gave him a wake-up call that changed his way of thinking. Later that year Cooke was involved in a car accident and his chauffeur Edward Cunningham was killed while Cooke and his guitarist Cliff White, and singer Lou Rawls were taken to hospital.
In 1959 he formed SAR Records and Kags Music Publishers, with his partner J.W. Alexander and took control all his compositions as well as artists signed to their label. Needing to maximise his sales they wanted a major label to distribute their releases. Instead, Cooke licensed their label to RCA where he recorded and released more hits including: Chain Gang, Twisting the Night Away, Having A Party, Cupid, And Bring It on Home to Me (a hit for the Animals in 1965)
In 1963 Cooke and his partner J.W. appointed Allen Klein to manage SAR, Kags music publishing and all their related companies and at the same time he became his manager. Within weeks Klein negotiated a deal with RCA where they would become a sole distributor of Cooke’s newly formed record label, Tracey Records for a period of thirty years. Cooke was to receive an advance of half a million dollars over three years and established Cooke’s complete ownership of his work. (Something that was to evade even the Beatles and Stones even though they were both linked by Allen Klein at some point in their careers)
Cooke was to write and record the single, The Gang’s All Here with Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) and they appeared on television singing it acapella before the fight Clay’s fight with Sony Liston in Miami.
Sam Cooke was shot and killed at the young age of 33 on December 11 1964 at a motel in Los Angeles. He sustained a gunshot wound to his chest which pierced his heart. The events are still shrouded in confusion and secrecy, and the truth is unlikely to ever come out but a large amount of cash that Cooke was carrying was never found.
Immediately after his death a double A side was
released with the title: Shake and A Change is
Gonna Come. Both reached the Top 40 pop and
R & B charts.
Sam Cooke was without doubt a pioneer, in what
were incredibly difficult times, and one of the
most influential soul artists of all time. He is
often referred to as The King of Sou
Cooke’s legacy is huge and his awards are too
many to list but the world continues to hear his
wonderful songs daily.l.