RISING ABOVE WITH SAM COOKE
Birthday shout-out to a change-agent who took action with song and voice.
Happy Heavenly Birthday to Sam Cooke, the King of Soul and one of America’s most important singer-songwriters, creative pioneers, and game-changers, with hit songs like “Chain Gang,” “Cupid,” “Saturday Night,” “Twisting the Night Away,” “You Send Me,” and so many more.
Born in 1931, Sam had a turbulent personal life but a rich and successful career. Starting as an adolescent, he spent years developing his recognizable tenor on the gospel circuit with The Soul Stirrers.
With his mid-range coated with a unique rasp, he also had remarkable pitch, described as “effortlessly soulful,” going up to a high C without losing purity or volume. His style was very adaptable, adopting a classical sound on jazz and pop songs while maintaining his trademark hold on R&B, gospel, and soul music. He even dabbled in country, and he may have been the first soul singer to cover Bob Dylan.
Sam’s influence has been cited by singers such as James Brown, Bryan Ferry, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Paul McCartney, Johnny Nash, Steve Perry, Otis Redding, Diana Ross, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, and many more.
In 1950 at age 19, Cooke made his first record as the new lead singer for The Soul Stirrers on ‘Jesus Gave Me Water”
They sang praise to Jesus for giving them the living water to quench their spiritual thirst. Cooke's mellifluous vocals stood out from the gospel shouters of the time and made The Soul Stirrers a hot commodity on the gospel circuit, especially among teenage girls who flocked to catch a glimpse of the handsome singer. He sang in a different way, going for a personable style in contrast to the then-fashionable male gospel style of what RH Harris called “that deep, pitiful singer, like ‘My mother died when I was young’...like Blind Boys, Pilgrim Travelers stuff.”
Surprisingly, it was Cooke’s pastor father who gave him the push he needed to pursue a path in secular music, even though everyone knew that most church people wouldn’t approve. Cooke explained, "My father told me it was not what I sang that was important, but that God gave me a voice and musical talent and the true use of His gift was to share it and make people happy."
Sam also had a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1964 he wrote the anthemic “A Change is Going to Come” after an altercation at a whites-only hotel in Louisiana. He went on to use 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.
In that same period, Cooke was kept looking for new styles to enlarge his repertoire, and that included the sounds of Jamaica. Concurrently he was mentoring Johnny Nash, a struggling young r’n’b singer from Texas, and Cooke advised Nash to distinguish himself from the herd of soul singers and “go reggae." The style-switch paid off hugely for Nash (another of my favorite singer-songwriters), who went on to present us with the evergreen “I Can See Clearly Now” in 1972. Here’s one of Nash’s early hits, a reggae-fied cover of Cooke’s “Cupid.”
Cooke revived the song “Wonderful World” after it was shelved by Lou Adler and Herb Alpert, who co-wrote and produced the initial recording circa 1959. Cooke added a “scholastic” theme and it graduated to a big hit single in 1960. It’s been covered many times, with notable performances by Bryan Ferry, Herman’s Hermits (w/Jimmy Page on guitar), Art Garfunkel w/Paul Simon & James Taylor, Johnny Nash, Otis Redding, and others—not to mention the pivotal scene in the Amish-noir 1985 WITNESS film w/Harrison Ford. Here’s my take on it:
In 2004 I wrote and recorded my tribute song “Sam Said (Tribute to Sam Cooke)”. The more you know about Cooke, the more you’ll connect with my lyrics in this song. My goal was to respectfully capture the arc of Cooke’s life and career, from his early days in gospel, to his popular standards, to his achievements as an entrepreneur and artistic role model. My recording of “Sam Said” was done no frills, straight up acoustic (produced by Mark Doyon), but I aim to re-record it someday in a reggae style
Meanwhile, HB Sam—thank you for blazing a trail with such an incredible voice.
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