Sam Cooke
Published September 10, 2003
If really, truly forced to pick my favorite singer of all time under penalty of castration or death or something, I suppose I would pick Sam Cooke (not that I have any hesitancy about Cooke, I just hate to be pinned down). His floating, creamy, earthy, stirring soulful marvelousness is the magical sweet spot on a continuum between Nat King Cole and Otis Redding.
Cooke began singing in his father's Baptist church and became gospel's biggest star of the '50s, yet he was restless.
Soon after joining the Specialty label as A&R man and producer, Bumps Blackwell attended a rousing gospel show at the L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium starring Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers.
"My initial impression was 'This cat should be pop' ... That was just too much voice to be in such a limited market," Blackwell told author Daniel Wolff in his biography of Cooke. Blackwell met Cooke at a party that Specialty owner Art Rupe threw after the show and discussed a turn to pop. Cooke was afraid of losing his religious market.
Bumps prodded Cooke along economic lines, and eventually he responded. "I wanted to do things for my family, and I wanted nice things for my own," Cooke reasoned. "Making a living was good enough, but what's wrong with doing better than that?"
Blackwell produced Cooke's first pop session (as Dale Cook) at J&M studio in New Orleans in December 1956, the same studio and players that Bumps had used to record Little Richard, but the results were less felicitous and the resulting single died.
Blackwell, who was black, knew what he wanted for Cooke. "We would like pop tunes with a blues chord structure which lend themselves to blues backgrounds. In writing the lyrics try to write white for the teenage purchaser rather than race lyrics," Blackwell advised. "It seems the white girls are buying records these days."
Blackwell intended to break Cooke directly into the mainstream pop market, instead of following the traditional route through R&B. He tried this approach at Cooke's next pop session in L.A. in 1957.
"With Sam, being that his voice was so fluid and much different than the other singers - and he sang so far off the melody, which was like a jazz singer - I had to get the melody of the song back in. So, I had [white vocal trio] the Pied Pipers on the melody. I used them like a string concept."
- Sam Cooke
- Published: September 10, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Christian and Gospel, Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Pop, Music: Hip-hop
- Writer: Eric Olsen
- Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
- Eric Olsen's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
I love Tom, but as an all time favorite, he's bit too eccentric for me.
yea, i can understand that...but then again, i'm also a big Beefheart fan...Bjork too.
i dunno, i guess i just gravitate toward weirdness.
I'd probably go for Howlin Wolf myself and yes, Beefheart rules the universe, but Tom Waites, singer? On the excellent "Wicked Grin" John Hammond Jr. sings Tom's songs and inside the liner Tom says, "Wow, I can finally understand the words." Hehe, what a card. Fabulous songwriter and a damn fine actor even.
I think Waits is a genius singer. And I think that John Hammond's "Wicked Grin" is just a great, great album that illuminates these Waits songs amazingly. So often on Tom's own great albums, it's hard to separate the songs from the performances. His singing is too iconoclastic and stylized on, say "Big Black Mariah," to realize that at its core, this is a very insistent, structured blues. Hammond approaches these songs in that spirit: They're not Tom Waits songs, but blues and folk songs.
Hammond sings and plays the hell out of these great songs, and the whole album has a kind of haunted, swampy sound. It's got Waits himself producing and much of the band from Bob Dylan's equally haunted, greasy "Time Out Of Mind" record.
Wicked Grin is also highly recommended as a Waits substitute in automotive situations when a riding companion forbids Tom's own "awful" "howling" "junkyard" albums.
My all-time favorite vocalist (at least at the moment I write this) is Jon Pousette-Dart.
Wait a sec.... maybe Billie Holiday.
Oh, heck! Perhaps I like Etta James best of all.
No, it's gotta be Aretha... yeah, that's it, Aretha!
But I forgot Janis! How could I forget Janis?
Then again, there's Lena Horne, and Satchmo, and Greg Lake, and I really like Muddy Waters...
Paul Butterfield had a gravelly growl that I always found enticing, and there was the obscure but excellent Nick Gravenites. But I'm forgetting the Stevie Winwood of the Traffic days.
Dang! I guess I'll just have to listen to a whole bunch of music over the weekend and get back to you on Monday. What a shame.
Jon Pousette-Dart!! That's a name from the past. I booked the Pousette-Dart band at my college in the '70s and they were amazing live, surprisingly powerful rhythm section, and his singing was strong and clear. Now I have to go back and listen to "Amnesia."
But no one has said a damn thing about poor old Sam.
Jon Pousette-Dart is still around, and still recording. His website (www.pousette-dart.com, believe it or not) has his bio, some downloads, lyrics to his best tunes (Yaicha, Listen to the Spirit, Amnesia, etc.) concert dates, and lots of cool stuff you (or at least I) didn't know.
My previous post was slightly in jest - I think that defining one's all-time favorite vocalist is as difficult a proposition as defining the top 100 guitarists of all time. That said, I'm listening to Blind Faith's Sea of Joy as I write this....
With the technology that has been in the recording industry it's pretty easy to dub, re-record over and cover up mistakes. Listen to Sam Cooke Live at the copa or anything live by Sam Cooke.
Regards
Jerry C Turner
I love Sam Cooke. His version of "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess is perfection.
Thanks guys, my love for Sam applies to live, studio, pop, soul and gospel. He was incomparable.
Eric,I'm surprised you didn't mention
Sam's "Night Beat" LP.It's probably the
most self realized of all his work.That
is to say,the one he most wanted to do
and was happiest with.It's definitely
the bluesiest thing he ever recorded.
Sam was and still is the greatest singer of all time! And by the way, How many of you will be attending the Third annual tribute to Sam in Los Angeles Jan. 22 ,2005 ?
If your interested log on to the Sam Cooke Fan Club on Yahoo They are the ones putting it on . The first Two tributes were phenomenal!!!!
Thanks Greg, sounds great, love to be there.
For me sam cooke and marvin gaye are
my two all time favourite singers and if
I had to pick just one well by a very
slight edge it would be sam cooke.About
27 years ago I was given a demonstration
LP of undiscovered songs by sam cooke
and have only ever played it once or
twice so I will have to buy a record
deck to hear that velvet voice again.
thanks Frankie, there are a lot of similarities between Sam and Marvin, both among the very best. Rather than having to buy a turntable, if you know someone who has a truntable, they could tape it for you, or even go the digital route?
when i was little my dad used to sing me the chain gang song by sam cooke, but he would make the lyrics different so they would go along with me. This past year he developed brain cancer and is dying, but i just wanted to say that i will always remember my dad because of that song and i will always remember sam cooke.
Allyson;
Your dad had/has good taste, the "Chain Gang" is a classic and my favorite Sam Cooke song. I also used to sing that song to my daughter when she was little (she's 22 now). And I had almost as much fun a couple months ago when I got a chance to sing along with it to my dad when it came on the radio.
I am the producer of the Motown Forever Radio Show on WEBR and this weekend we are featuring a full show about Sam Cooke. I invite everyone to tune in via the internet at www.fcac.or and click on radio at 3:00pm on this upcoming Saturday. Also, please let everyone you know, know of the show. Feel free to contact the show at WEBRMotown at hotmail.com.
Thanks again.
Curtis
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/8269)
i'd pick Tom Waits