Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook was born on January 22, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the fifth of eight children of the Reverend Charles Cook, a Baptist minister, and Annie Mae Carroll.^[1] The family moved to Chicago when Sam was two years old. He grew up in the church, singing in the choir, and began performing publicly with his siblings in a group called the Singing Children.

In 1950, at age 19, Cooke replaced the legendary R.H. Harris as lead singer of the Soul Stirrers, one of the most prestigious gospel quartets in America, signed to Specialty Records. He transformed the group's sound with an innovative melismatic technique, a fluid bending and ornamentation of notes, and became a major figure in gospel before he was 25.^[1]

The stigma against gospel singers going secular was severe. In 1956 Cooke secretly recorded a pop single, "Lovable," under the alias "Dale Cook" to avoid alienating his gospel audience. He left the Soul Stirrers in April 1957, signed with Keen Records, and released "You Send Me," which shot to number one on both the Pop and R&B charts and stayed on the charts for 26 weeks, establishing him overnight as a major solo star.^[1]

He signed with RCA Victor in 1960. Between 1957 and 1964 he placed 30 songs in the US Top 40, including "Chain Gang," "Wonderful World," "Twistin' the Night Away," "Another Saturday Night," and "Bring It on Home to Me." He was among the first modern Black artists to assert control over the business side of his career, co-founding both a record label (SAR Records) and a publishing company, and hiring manager Allen Klein to renegotiate his RCA contract to secure unprecedented creative control.^[2]

In 1963, prompted by hearing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and by a humiliating arrest at a Shreveport, Louisiana Holiday Inn after being refused rooms in an act of racial discrimination, Cooke wrote "A Change Is Gonna Come." Recorded on January 30, 1964, it became one of the defining anthems of the civil rights era and is now ranked among the greatest songs ever recorded.^[3]

Sam Cooke was shot and killed on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles. He was 33 years old. The official ruling was justifiable homicide, but the circumstances have been disputed by his family and researchers in the decades since.^[1] "A Change Is Gonna Come" was released posthumously eleven days after his death. It endures as his most profound artistic statement.