Sam Cooke was an American singer, songwriter and enterpreneur. He is considered to be one of the most influencial soul artists of all time.
He is currently one of the four figures that appear in the new film “One Night in Miami” which explores his friendship with Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Jim Browm.
Let’s find out some trivia and facts about his life and carerr.
- His full name was Samuel Cook
- He was born on January 22, 1931
- He died on December 11, 1964
- He was known professionally as Sam Cooke
- Cooke was an American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur
- He is considered to be a pioneer and one of the most influential soul artists of all time
- Cooke is commonly referred to as the King of Soul
- This title was attributed to him because of his distinctive vocals, notable contributions to the genre and high significance in popular music
- Cooke was born in Mississippi
- He later relocated to Chicago with his family at a young age
- There he began singing as a child
- He joined the Soul Stirrers as lead singer in the 1950s
- Going solo in 1957, Cooke released a string of hit songs
- His hit songs include “You Send Me”, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, “Cupid”, “Wonderful World”, “Chain Gang”, “Twistin’ the Night Away”, “Bring It On Home to Me”, and “Good Times”
- During his eight year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Pop Singles chart
- As well as 20 singles in the Top Ten of Billboard’s Black Singles chart
- In 1964, Cooke was shot and killed by the manager of a motel in Los Angeles
- After an inquest and investigation, the courts ruled Cooke’s death to be a justifiable homicide
- His family has since questioned the circumstances of his death
- Cooke’s pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the work of Otis Redding and James Brown
- AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was “the inventor of soul music”, and possessed “an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed”
- Cooke was also a central part of the civil rights movement
- Using his influence and popularity with the white and Black population to fight for the cause
- He was good friends with boxer Muhammad Ali, activist Malcolm X and football player Jim Brown
- Together, they campaigned for racial equality
- This friendship was explored in the play/film: “One Night in Miami”
- He added the “e” to his last name in 1957 to signify a new start to his life
- He was the fifth of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness), and his wife, Annie Mae
- One of his younger brothers, L.C., later became a member of the doo-wop band Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents
- Sam Cooke began his career with his siblings in a group called the Singing Children when he was six years old
- He first became known as lead singer with the Highway Q.C.’s when he was a teenager, having joined the group at the age of 14
- During this time, Cooke befriended fellow gospel singer and neighbor Lou Rawls, who sang in a rival gospel group
- Cooke had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964
- He had three more posthumously
- Major hits like “You Send Me”, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, “Cupid”, “Chain Gang”, “Wonderful World”, “Another Saturday Night”, and “Twistin’ the Night Away” are some of his most popular songs
- Twistin’ the Night Away was one of his biggest selling albums
- Cooke was also among the first modern Black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career
- He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer
- He also took an active part in the Civil Rights Movement
- Cooke was married twice
- His first marriage was to singer-dancer Dolores Elizabeth Milligan Cook, who took the stage name “Dee Dee Mohawk” in 1953
- They divorced in 1958
- She was killed in an auto collision in Fresno, California in 1959
- Although he and Dolores were divorced, Cooke paid for his ex-wife’s funeral expenses
- She was survived by her son Joey
- In 1958, Cooke married his second wife, Barbara Campbell, in Chicago
- His father performed the ceremony
- They had three children, Linda, Tracy and Vincent
- Vincent drowned in the family swimming pool
- Less than three months after Cooke’s death, his widow, Barbara, married his friend Bobby Womack
- Womack sexually abused Cooke’s daughter, Linda
- Linda married Womack’s brother, Cecil Womack
- They became the duo Womack & Womack
- Cooke also fathered at least three other children out of wedlock
- In 1958, a woman in Philadelphia, Connie Bolling, claimed Cooke was the father of her son
- Cooke paid her an estimated $5,000 settlement out of court
- In November 1958, Cooke was involved in a car accident en route from St. Louis to Greenville
- His chauffeur Edward Cunningham was killed
- While Cooke, guitarist Cliff White, and singer Lou Rawls were hospitalized
- Cooke was killed at the age of 33 on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel, in Los Angeles, California
- Answering separate reports of a shooting and a kidnapping at the motel, police found Cooke’s corpse
- He had sustained a gunshot wound to the chest, which was later determined to have pierced his heart
- The motel’s manager, Bertha Franklin, claimed to have shot him in self-defense
- Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke’s acquaintances
- The official police record states that Franklin fatally shot Cooke, who had checked in earlier that evening
- Franklin said that Cooke had banged on the door of her office, shouting “Where’s the girl?!”
- Franklin shouted back that there was no one in her office except herself, but an enraged Cooke did not believe her and forced his way into the office, naked except for one shoe and a sport jacket
- He grabbed her, demanding again to know the woman’s whereabouts
- According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve a gun
- She said she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life
- Cooke was struck once in the torso
- According to Franklin, he exclaimed, “Lady, you shot me”, in a tone that expressed perplexity rather than anger, before advancing on her again
- She said she hit him in the head with a broomstick before he finally fell to the floor and died
- A coroner’s inquest was convened to investigate the incident
- The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night several minutes before Carr had
- Boyer had called from a telephone booth near the motel
- Some of Cooke’s family and supporters, however, have rejected Boyer’s version of events, as well as those given by Franklin and Carr
- They believe that there was a conspiracy to murder Cooke and that the murder took place in some manner entirely different from the three official accounts
- No concrete evidence supporting a criminal conspiracy has been presented to date
- The first funeral service for Cooke was held on December 18, 1964, at A. R. Leak Funeral Home in Chicago where 200,000 fans lined up for more than four city blocks to view his body
- In 1986, Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- In 1987, Cooke was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
- In 1989, Cooke was inducted a second time to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the Soul Stirrers were inducted
- On February 1, 1994, Cooke received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the music industry, located on 7051 Hollywood Boulevard
- Although Cooke never won a Grammy Award, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, presented by Larry Blackmon of funk super-group Cameo
- In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Cooke 16th on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”
- In 2008, Cooke was named the fourth “Greatest Singer of All Time” by Rolling Stone
- In 2008, Cooke received the first plaque on the Clarksdale Walk of Fame, located at the New Roxy theater
- In 2009, Cooke was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Clarksdale
- In June 2011, the city of Chicago renamed a portion of East 36th Street near Cottage Grove Avenue as the honorary “Sam Cooke Way” to remember the singer near a corner where he hung out and sang as a teenager
- In 2013, Cooke was inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, at Cleveland State University
- The founder of the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Museum, LaMont Robinson, said he was the greatest singer ever to sing
- The Sam Cooke quote “A Change Is Gonna Come” is on a wall of the Contemplative Court, a space for reflection in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
- The museum opened in 2016
- Cooke is inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame
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