Eight Bars of Soul

December 11, 2007 2:59 AM

Proceeding Otis by two years and 364 days, Sam Cooke was shot and killed on this day in 1964. Much controversy still surrounds his death, but his legacy is untouchable and influence sweeping. From gospel to pop, he did it all. You Send Me, Ain't That Good News, Cupid, Chain Gang, and Bring it on Home to Me were some of his biggest hits and (along with Ray's work) the early foundations of soul; but it was one song, inspired by a white boy's passion, that gave a posthumous voice to a broken nation. Today and forever, Sam Cooke is yours, he'll never grow old.
posted by Roman Graves (29 comments total)

Excellent post. Well done.
posted by Wolof at 3:21 AM on December 11, 2007

Excellent post. Not the best video for it, but Wonderful World was always my favorite by him, despite Art Garfunkel's attempts to destroy it.
posted by waraw at 3:28 AM on December 11, 2007

Aaron Neville singing A Change is Gonna Come on Yellow Moon still makes me swoon. Powerful song -- on a level with Strange Fruit.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:19 AM on December 11, 2007

I love me some soul.

[Grammar nazi: Preceding Otis by...two years]
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:07 AM on December 11, 2007

That's some sweet harmonizing on Bring It On Home To Me, no lie. Love that tune. I have to say, though, a lot of Sam Cooke's stuff is, for me personally, just a little too sweet, too polite. I like stuff with more grit and more bite, like Otis and Wilson Pickett, for example. Just personal taste, though, and of course, Cooke had a fine voice. A Change Is Gonna Come is a masterpiece, too... he sings that one so beautifully. I always liked The Band's version of it, too: Rick Danko had a good feel for the tune, I think. And here's a page with some really interesting background info on the song.

Thanks for the post, Roman Graves.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:07 AM on December 11, 2007

Oh, and as far as the "sound of the men working on the chain gang", y'all be sure to head over here and check out some of the inspiration for that tune.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:20 AM on December 11, 2007

flapjax, for a "grittier" taste of Sam check out his Live at The Harlem Square Club album. He could tear it up with the best of them. The version of "Bring It On Home To Me" on that is perfect.
posted by Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific at 5:41 AM on December 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

Putting in a plug for the always-excellent Peter Guralnick's Cooke biography Dream Boogie .
posted by Dr. Wu at 6:14 AM on December 11, 2007

for a "grittier" taste of Sam check out his Live at The Harlem Square Club album

Seconded. I have been a fan of Sam Cooke for a very long time, but only recently came into possession of this album. It was a revelation and will completely change your view of him as a performer.
posted by briank at 6:18 AM on December 11, 2007

for a "grittier" taste of Sam check out his Live at The Harlem Square Club album

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is the greatest live album (in the rock and roll / soul category, it's hard to distinguish here) ever recorded. There. Said it! You've all been thinking it!

Man, that INTRO to Bring it on Home is worth the price of admission alone.

He works that audience into a frenzy - a bona fide frenzy. It's fucking fantastic. Every second of every song is a winner. At certain points it sounds like his voice is coming from outer space and burning up as it enters our atmosphere. I don't know how many times I've listened to that show and it still elicits a remarkably strong emotional reaction every single time.

And if it's not the greatest live album ever recorded... well, it's certainly got to be in the top handful.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 6:52 AM on December 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

I second, third, fourth the Harlem Square Club album, although my personal high point on that LP is the "It's All Right/Sentimental Reasons" medley.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:00 AM on December 11, 2007

I always felt that he had four specific directions his music took, and to have that kind of crossover appeal is really shocking actually.

First were the gospel songs that started his career. When he started doing other music, at first he recorded under a different name because it was taboo for gospel singers to perform secular music and he didn't want to alienate his fan base. Everyone knew his voice though, so the fake name didn't work.

The sweet songs flapjacks mentioned always seemed to me to be aimed at the white teenybopper high school crowd... Another Saturday Night, Let's Go Steady Again, You Send Me, Only Sixteen, Cupid, Twistin' The Night Away, Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha, You Were Made For Me, Wonderful World.

Then there were the jazz/blues standards & cabaret tunes he covered, aimed at the older white crowd... I've Got A Right to Sing The Blues, Comes Love, When I Fall In Love, Don't Get Around Much Any More, Exactly Like You, But Not For Me, Cry Me A River, All The Way, I Wish You Love. I always like to hear his take on jazz tunes because it's slightly different, more pop but with occasional surprising bursts of soul. Makes me think about the song a song I've heard a million times a little differently, from a different perspective.

And then there was the soul stuff and the songs like Change where I think you really hear more of HIM, who he was, and that was more for himself. It's such a tragedy that he died when he did because he was just breaking free from the recording companies and working on building up his own record label (some say that's what got him killed). He was never one to go along with what people told him to do, which could be very dangerous at the time. He was remembered as the first artist to take a political stand and refuse to sing to segregated audiences. He was one of the first artists to demand ownership of his own career and retain his own copyrights. He was the first African-American artist to own a record label, and he established his own management company and music publishing company as well. And he was only 33 when he died. (One scandalous little aside, one of Sam's musical discoveries was Bobby Womack... he recorded The Womack Brothers on his label in the early 60s. After Sam died, Bobby married his widow and Bobby's brother married Sam's daughter.)

Anyhow, I imagine had he lived we would've heard less and less of the sweet stuff and more and more of what really made him tick. And it's really a tragedy we were denied that. Because whatever it was I'm sure it would've been amazing. The guy had massive musical talent.

If you want to hear all sides of him, this set is pretty great. And it's on sale! :)
posted by miss lynnster at 7:09 AM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Speaking of Otis Redding...
posted by deadmessenger at 7:18 AM on December 11, 2007

Afroblanco -

The one Miss Lynnster mentioned, "The Man Who Invented Soul" is pretty great.

And it's got the complete "Live at the Harlem Square Club" show!!
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:40 AM on December 11, 2007

(There's a link to it at the very bottom of her comment)
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:40 AM on December 11, 2007

Live at the Harlem Square Club is awesome, but that link to him singing blowin in the wind gave me the serious chills for some reason. Great post.
posted by Sk4n at 7:46 AM on December 11, 2007

That's some sweet harmonizing on Bring It On Home To Me, no lie.

That's when happens when you start with one of the greatest voices of the last 50 years and then have some guy named Lou Rawls jump in on harmony.

Same duo on That's Where It's At.

Also: a second for the Dream Boogie plug.
posted by tallthinone at 8:01 AM on December 11, 2007

I did a show last year (maybe two years ago) with Cooke's biographer, Peter Guralnick. Here's a direct MP3 link.
posted by YoungAmerican at 8:15 AM on December 11, 2007

Anything written by Guralnick is well worth reading, especially his two-part Elvis biography.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:27 AM on December 11, 2007

Thanks -- excellent post. There can never be enough Sam Cooke.
posted by blucevalo at 8:34 AM on December 11, 2007

Thank you for the link to the box set, miss lynnster
posted by briank at 8:37 AM on December 11, 2007

Spike Lee makes great use of "A Change Is Gonna Come" in the scene in Malcolm X where Malcolm walks to the ballroom where he will be assassinated.
posted by jonp72 at 9:13 AM on December 11, 2007

Yeah, so here's a good visual on the type of crowd he was singing that pop stuff for. He was WAY too hip for the room, to say the least.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:20 AM on December 11, 2007

This is great timing- I've been having a Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson renewed fascination the past month. I remember being very small in the back of the car while my mom and grandmother were having an argument over who was more handsome and talented, Sam or Jackie.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:54 AM on December 11, 2007

I bumped into this article about Sam Cooke in the last few years and really appreciated it.
posted by kimota at 10:29 AM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964 is a nice Sam Cooke compilation.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:38 PM on December 11, 2007

I first heard my favorite story about Sam on an hour-long biography that used to be on YouTube. He was sittin' in his brother's car, waiting for him to return, when two cops pulled up behind him. They came up and told him he had to move the car off the street. Sam told them it wasn't his car, and that his brother would be back in just a moment. One of them said "Boy, you're gonna move this car." Sam looked up and coolly replied "My name is Sam Cooke. You may not know me, but go home and ask your wife. She does. I'm a singer, not a mover. I sing, I don't move cars." He sat there until his brother came back, and they drove away without incident.

Like miss lynnster said, this is the Sam we sadly didn't get to hear more of.
posted by Roman Graves at 3:33 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is great timing- I've been having a Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson renewed fascination the past month.

I remember seeing Jackie Wilson a couple of times at Wigan Casino in the mid-70's. He was performing at one of their Birthday All-Nighter's, so he wouldn't have taken the stage until about 3.00am or 4.00am -- given that the place didn't actually open until 2.00am -- and by that time, he must have been cracking on a bit. Nevertheless, he did a set that was worthy of James Brown in his prime.

Lots of soul and R&B bands would tour the UK in those days, and what you generally got was a bunch of broken down old has-beens billing themselves as something like The Fabulous Temptations, which might have contained a single ex-Tempt. or The Original Four Tops, who didn't have a single original member. But what you got with Jackie was the real thing. I recall him performing The Who Who Song like it was yesterday.

A couple of years later, it was revealed that he was broke, in hospital, and terminally ill (brain cancer or Alzheimers or something that effected his brain), and there was a request for support from UK soul fans, and I remember wondering how it could be that someone who had had so many big hits, and worked steadily his whole life, could be so broke. Of course, that was the reality of being a black recording artist back in those days. When people like Florence Ballard can subsist in poverty, you've got to know that someone is fucking them over. Anyway, I recall that the support from British fans was huge and was really quite touching. Even so, his death was a pitiful release.

Loving me some Sam as well. When I go, let it be from being covered in hot grits from a jealous mistress's hand.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:27 PM on December 11, 2007

flapjax: excellent link for the prison songs. Thanks for pointing that out.
posted by Roman Graves at 8:24 PM on December 11, 2007