SUNDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO: Sam Cooke’s “Jesus Gave Me Water”
My cover of a gospel classic
Happy souls sang in earnest that Sunday morning when I joined San Francisco’s Temple United Methodist Church Choir to sing “Jesus Gave Me Water.” The song was made famous by Sam Cooke & The Soul Stirrers and was written by Lucie E. Campbell. It re-tells the famous story (from the Gospel of John) about the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at Jacob’s Well, a public watering place near Mount Gerizim (a place of spiritual significance). Jesus was enroute to Galilee, having just finished a lot of work in “respectable Judaea.” He stopped to take a break in “unrespectable Samaria,” home of racial half-breeds looked down upon by Pharisees and Romans. As the disciples went to buy bread, Jesus rested by the well as a solitary gentile woman walked up to draw water. Then he broke at least two social and religious rules when he asked her to give him a drink. A deep and eye-opening conversation followed, untwisting the barriers between natural and spiritual, literal and eternal, condemnation and redemption.
The Soul Stirrers recorded "Jesus Gave Me Water” in 1950.
It was their first recording with their new lead singer, a 19-year-old Sam Cooke, singing 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."
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