Happy Birthday to Sam Cooke!
The King of Soul
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SAM COOKE, the King of Soul and one of America’s most influential singer-songwriters, creative pioneers, and game-changers, cranking out hit songs “Chain Gang,” “Cupid,” “Saturday Night,” “Twisting the Night Away,” “Wonderful World,” “You Send Me,” and so many more. His distinctive vocal style clearly influenced singers such as Steve Perry and Rod Stewart. Born in 1931, Sam was also a major player in the Civil Rights Movement. He used his popularity to appeal to whites and blacks, joining a platform with his friends Muhammed Ali, Jim Brown, and Malcolm X to campaign for racial equality.
“Sam Said” is my tribute song: My lyrics describe the arc of his life and career, from his early days in gospel music, to his popular standards, then to his achievements as an entrepreneur and artist’s role model. This is a no-frills acoustic recording, but I aim to re-record it in a reggae style, as reggae was a field Cooke was heading towards before he died in 1964 (Sidebar: Cooke advised a struggling young r’n’b singer from Texas to “go reggae." His name was Johnny Nash, and the style-switch worked out grandly for Nash, another of my favorite singer-songwriters). Meanwhile, HB Sam—thank you for blazing a trail with such a lovely voice.
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