King of Soul: The Music of Sam Cooke and other Soul and R&B Selections & Show # 1024

Article Written By Adam Peltier

Who was the real Sam Cooke? Its one of the many mysteries left after the artist’s premature death in 1964. Like any person, he was many things, so many that these facets often appear to be in contradiction. He was a schmaltzy crooner and a throat-rending RnB showman, a gospel-singing spiritualist and a licentious lothario, a shrewd businessperson and an influential Civil Rights activist. Sixty years after his murder, the pieces of this puzzle remain. Will we ever know whom exactly this golden-voiced “King of Soul” was or will we remain projecting our own notions onto the man, defining an identity of the “Sam Cooke” we want him to be? As Virginia Woolf wrote of the titular character in Jacob’s Room:

“It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown...life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this -- and much more than this is true -- why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us--why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him.”

Much like Jacob, whose inner-voice Woolf kept suppressed and unheard during the course of the novel, Cooke is a man we will never truly known beyond the shadows projected on him by history and our own hungry gazes.

Sam Cooke’s legacy tends to cast him as a social conscious activist-singer. This conception of the man is undoubtedly bolstered by his epochal hymn of humanism, the song that went on to be considered the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights movement, “A Change is Gonna Come.” This is an incredible legacy to be associated with, but is one that overlooks the multifaceted career and character of the singer.

Cooke’s greatest commercial successes was not as an activist, but an entertainer. He longed for crossover success between coloured and white audiences, doing all he could to be considered a type of “Black Sinatra” (to borrow an idea from his friend and fellow activist, Muhammad Ali), a standard-bearer of feel-good anthems and dance tunes. This contradicts the legacy imposed on Cooke as a social justice songwriter; the majority his songs were not about political activism, but were pop ditties about falling in love, being in love, and having a good time. His 1962 Greatest Hits compilation is replete with such songs: “Cupid,” “Having a Party,” and “Twistin’ the Night Away” to name a few. So, is this the answer? Was Cooke simply a pop entertainer, one who longed for unparalleled success, but who saw the light and began making socially conscious music? No life is so simple and linear.

Cooke started as a spiritual singer with the gospel-group The Soul Stirrers. His initial career was not in secular, but spiritual music. The Soul Stirrers found success with Sam’s debut recording, “Jesus Gave Me Water.” Not only did this garner a major hit for the band, with its framework going on to influence a great deal of secular pop music like doo wop and Motown, it also gave Sam his first taste of success. Critic and biographer Peter Guralnick credits Sam and the Soul Stirrers for bringing gospel music to the attention of a wider and younger audience. Particularly, an audience of young women. In Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, Guralnick writes that girls would rush to the stage when the Soul Stirrers performed, hoping to glimpse the charismatic and handsome singer. Already, lines were blurring; the pious gospel singer experienced the type of treatment normally received by pop idols. This may have been the catalyst for Sam to leave the group and pursue a career in pop music. Despite this shift, many aspects of his gospel background would remain implicit in his recordings, imbuing tracks like “Mean Old World” and “Summertime” with a sense of spiritual longing and hope. “A Change is Gonna Come” permeates with the fervor of faith and transcendence, even as Sam frets in the song over mortality and the uncertainly of what lays “beyond the sky.”

So, does this straighten the narrative? Was Sam Cooke the once faithful gospel singer who discovered his voice in secular music, pursued success in the realm of pop, and then grew into a socially conscious activist? Again, the story is murkier than that. What of numbers like the empathetic ode to prisoners in “Chain Gang” or his touching rendition of “Deep River,” both released during his boom period of pop success? How do these contribute to this narrative? This adds another layer of complexity to the mystery of Sam Cooke.

Another aspect to consider is how sanitized Cooke made his music during this bid for pop success. Producers and agents forced the artist to chase trends, layering songs with syrupy string arrangements and encouraging him to write about flash-in-the-pan dance crazes (e.g. the twist, the cha-cha). How do we consolidate the boundary-breaking artist of social justice and radical declarations for Civil Rights with the man who frequently capitulated to trends of the music industry?

Then there was the intimate Sam Cooke, a side of the artist revealed in twofold during 1963. This year saw the release of the introspective Night Beat album. The parred down recording, lacking the studio embellishments and orchestrations of much of his discography, revealed a different aspect of the artist. As per the title, Night Beat features an eerie late night vibe, unlike the smooth trappings of his previous albums. It is a recording marked by melancholy, doubt, and longing. This album displayed a type of intimacy and maturity unprecedented in the singer’s previous work. This pensive and reflective Sam Cooke not only stood at odds against what came before, but what else he would record that year, a raucous live performance at the Harlem Square Club in Miami, Florida.

The Sam Cooke of Live at the Harlem Square Club is not the pop balladeer of “You Send Me” and “Wonderful World,” nor is it the contemplative singer from Night Beat. This Sam Cooke is energy incarnate, hard-hitting and raw. Standards like “Cupid” and “Having a Party” receive new life, as Cooke howls through his back catalog. Fiery passion and intensity replaces the slickness of the studio recordings. Gone are the saccharine trappings of “For Sentimental Reasons” and “Nothin’ Can Change This Love,” the words to these pop hits meaningless. It is all about the energy Cooke sings with, and that voice. That voice. Sam could sing nonsense and make it sound profound. The voice was all that mattered. This was as far from away from being a “Black Sinatra” as he would ever get. Perhaps this performance was too intense, as executives at Cooke’s label decided releasing the boisterous performance would jeopardize their star’s pop persona. The label canned this release in favour of the schmaltzy Sam Cooke Live at the Copa. The glitz and polish of that recording could not stand more in contrast to what was captured that night in Miami in 1963. Thankfully, the record saw a proper release in 1985 and has since been rightfully recognized as one of the greatest live rock/pop recordings ever released. We finally had a chance to hear that performance, and that voice. Indeed, that voice is all we have left of Sam Cooke. Yet, where does that leave us?

The landmark release of “A Change Is Gonna Come” in 1964 created another disruption to the identity of Sam Cooke. This is a song that no essay or critique can encapsulate the power of. It must be listened to, inhabited. It is a call to action, an existential reflection, and a plead for justice so profound and powerful that it has usurped almost all other aspects of Cooke’s legacy. The song turned the singer into “the civil rights singer,” despite the scarcity of political material in his catalog. It is that monumental of a song, its impact hardly deluded despite its 60 years of existence. Despite the legacy-defining power of this track, it may be surprising to learn the song was not initially released as a single. This epochal song saw release on the album Ain’t That Good News in February, and was only released on a single in December as the B-side to the track “Shake,” a return to the more feel-good dance music of Cooke’s past hits. The song would only see its official release as an A-side in 1967, three years after the singer’s passing. Despite this, it would wind up being the Sam Cooke song.

The album “Change” was released on, Ain’t That Good News, much like the artist himself, is full of seeming paradoxes. The first side of the record is a stream of hard soul and horn-laden RnB. Its sound has more in common with releases from contemporaries like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett than the polished pop of Cooke’s past. Yet this is a juxtaposition to what comes on the second side. While it opens up thunderously with “A Change is Gonna Come,” the remainder of the side features a series of orchestral ballads and traditional numbers. This pairing may seem an odd choice, but it shows the complexity of Cooke’s character. He was not one thing, but many. Despite the comfort taken in calling the artist the “civil rights singer,” easily identifying and cataloging him, Sam Cooke was not so easy to pin down. He could extol the pleasures of life in “Good Times,” issue world-shaking profundity with “A Change is Gonna Come”, and croon hackneyed tripe about giving his love “a chicken that has no bone” on “The Riddle Song.” Sam was that complex, that human. As Woolf alluded, many have taken to embracing the shadows of only certain aspects of his legacy, yet people are more than the penumbra of how others chose to view them. As a Black American fighting for Civil Rights, Cooke knew all about the oppression that such aspersions cast by others could engender.

Cooke passed away in tragic fashion, murdered on December 11th, 1964 in a Los Angeles motel at the age of thirty-three. Many questions remain after his death, but one of them was what would have happened if tragedy had not struck that fateful day? Who would Sam Cooke have become and what other facets of his person would we have witnessed? Would he continue pursuing socially conscious topics in his music? Would he follow the path set by Night Beat, creating intimate and introspective songs? Would he revert to the type of accessible pop balladry he built his career on? Alternatively, would we have witnessed a completely new artist, inspired by the changes of popular music in the 1960s as heralded by the likes of The Beatles, Hendrix, and Cooke’s inspiration for “Change,” Bob Dylan? Ultimately, we will never know.

The question remains, not just for Sam Cooke, but also for the myriad of Black lives taken too young, unjustly robbed of their chance to live, breathe, and be free: who would they have become? We will never know the true Sam Cooke (who do we ever learn to know in a true sense?), but let this mystery stand as an emblem, a reminder of all the lives that we cannot know. When I think of Sam Cooke, I do not think of the man as an activist, entertainer, zealot, nor victim. People are more complex than that, impossible to distill down to a single idea. I choose instead to struggle, to make out details through the shadow cast by my own gaze, to take in the complex and often contradictory elements that made up this singular human being, gifted with a voice like none other and who inspired countless many with his charm, skill, style, and ideas. Sam Cooke was a man, and like all men, was prone to ambition, contradiction, tragedy, and triumph. When remembering Sam Cooke, it is crucial to remember not to let our perceptions, the shadows we cast, loom over who he was. Even if we will never truly grasp the entirety of this incredibly talented human being, the point is to try and embrace the unknowability and seemingly paradoxical nature of who Sam Cooke, who any of us, are.

So, who was the real Sam Cooke? Artist? Businessman? Trend-setter? Trend-follower? Lothario? Faithful? Faithless? Activist? Capitalist? Victim? Hero? Voice? Legend? Yes, but also no. Peer through the shadows, scrutinize, and be prepared for an obfuscated view. The act of looking is the point.

King of Soul Playlist (Originally Aired On February 3rd, 2024):

1.  Sam Cooke - Mean Old World 
2.  Sam Cooke - Meet Me at Mary’s 
3.  Sam Cooke - It’s All Right/For Sentimental Reasons (Live) 
4.  Sam Cooke - (Somebody) Ease My Troublin’ Mind 
5.  Eddie Spencer - Power of Love 
6.  Eddie Spencer - If This is Love I’d Rather Be Lonely 
7.  Eric Mercury - Everybody Has the Right to Love 
8.  Salome Bey - Paper Man 
9.  Jackie Shane - Send Me Some Lovin’ 
10. Jackie Shane - Chickadee
11. The Soul Stirrers - I’m So Glad (Trouble Don’t Last) 
12. Dale Cooke - Lovable
13. Sam Cooke - Introduction/Soul Twist (Live) 
14. Sam Cooke - Feel It (Don’t Fight It) (Live) 
15. Sam Cooke - Nothing Can Change This Love (Live) 
16. Sam Cooke - Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
17. Jo-Jo and the Fugitives - Fugitive Song 
18. Lloyd Delpratt - Together 
19. The Sheiks - Eternal Love 
20. Jackie Mittoo - Grand Funk
21. Jackie Mittoo - Soul Bird 
22. Otis Redding - A Change Gonna Come 
23. Aretha Franklin - Good Times 
24. Jackie Wilson & Count Basie - Chain Gang 
25. The Supremes - Shake 
26. Gary U.S. Bonds - Quarter ‘Till Three 
27. Gary U.S. Bonds - Not Me 
28. The Equals - Police On My Back 

To hear this program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and click the February 3 file to download/stream the episode.