The Life and Times of Sam Cooke
Daniel Wolff
Clifton White
This Book was reviewed by: Gordon Flagg - BookList, Publisher's
Weekly, Library Journal, Karen Schoemer - Newsweek, Terrence
Rafferty - The New Yorker, Michael Eric Dyson - The Christian
Century and The Publisher
From Gordon Flagg - BookList:
Sam Cooke epitomized the "crossover" artist. Not only did he cross over
from gospel music--he was lead singer of the famous Soul Stirrers while
in his teens--to the secular world with his 1957 hit, "You Send Me," but
he crossed over from the rhythm-and-blues to the pop charts, achieving
huge success with white audiences--not just teenagers but adults crowds
at the Copacabana and other supper clubs. Wolff effectively sets the story
of Cooke's career against the backdrop of the burgeoning civil rights
movement, demonstrating how the singer became a powerful and
prominent role model, both through his public activism and by going
beyond racial pride to actual empowerment when he started his own
record label. Unfortunately, Wolff begins the book with an account of
Cooke's death by gunshot in a sleazy L.A. hotel at age 33. Although
Cooke was no moral paragon (he was, for instance, consistently,
notoriously unfaithful to his wives), that initial attention grabber
overemphasizes the importance of an event that contradicts the legacy of
his music and his career.
From Publisher's Weekly:
An important contribution to the history of pop music in mid-century, this
work by freelance journalist Wolff in collaboration with singer Craine,
guitarist and bandleader White and music researcher Tenenbaum follows
the career of Sam Cooke (born Cook) from boy singer in his father's
church choir to his murder in a cheap L.A. motel in 1964. Born in 1931 in
the Mississippi Delta region, he and his family migrated to Chicago in the
Depression. While still a teenager, he was picked to sing in a prestigious
gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1951. Later, he crossed over into
secular music, where he had a string of hits, including the blockbuster
``You Send Me.'' Handsome and well bred, he was irresistible to many
women, married twice and fathered a number of children out of wedlock.
The official version that he was shot by a woman during a fight raised
many questions, but the LAPD, according to the authors, viewed Cooke
as ``just another dead nigger.'' Here we are offered more speculation
about his sad end. (Feb.)
From Library Journal:
When Sam Cooke left the Soul Stirrers in 1957 to cross over into popular
music, the gospel scene lost one of its biggest stars. The rest of the
world gained the distinctive voice of the first practitioner of the musical
style that became known as soul. More than a singer, Cooke composed
songs that are still being performed more than 30 years later. He had the
business acumen to protect his publishing rights in an era when artists
were routinely fleeced. He was also one of the first performers to take a
leadership role in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. Unfortunately,
his unsavory shooting death at 33 cast a shadow over a great African
American success story. Written with the help of the Soul Stirrers'
founder and Cooke's bandleader, this should stand as the definitive
biography of one of popular American music's most important stars.
Highly recommended.-Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation,
Curwensville, Pa.
From Karen Schoemer - Newsweek:
Wolff only casually touches on Cooke's seamier side, as if he were loath
to tarnish the singer's angelic image. That seaminess, or Cooke's lifelong
suppression of it, may have informed his work in ways we'll never know.
Reading'You Send Me,' one gets the sense that a less timid writer might
have told a very different story. An associate of Cooke's, Bumps
Blackwell, gives one of the book's rare insights into Sam's character:
'Here was a guy who always stepped into a bucket of s-- and came out
smelling like a rose.' 'You Send Me' isone hell of a bouquet.
From Terrence Rafferty - The New Yorker:
{This book} by Daniel Wolff (with supporting-author credits to S.R.
Crainand Clifton White, who were friends and musical associates of the
singer's, and G. David Tenenbaum, a researcher), is a solid, smoothly
written account of Cooke's career, but the book's authority is undermined
by Wolff's tendency to analyze his subject's music in simplistic racial
terms. Wolff is determined to turn Sam Cooke's erratic explorations of
wildly diverse musical styles . . .into a parable of the black experience in
the fifties and early sixties. . . . Throughout, the book suggests that its
subject's mainstream success was the product of compromise. . . . Wolff
may know plenty about history, but he doesn't appear to know why he
loves Sam Cooke: you sense that he's drawn to the music despite, rather
than because of, its variety, its unclassifiability, its unearthly combination
of soothing textures and profound emotional urgency. The demon that
frightens the writer of this biography is the sheer ambiguity of its subject's
popular art, the soulfulness that can't be reduced to black and white. Sam
Cooke crossed over; Daniel Wolff sends him back.
From Michael Eric Dyson - The Christian Century:
Daniel Wolff's exhaustive and eloquent biography succeeds. He depicts
how Cooke's life shaped his music and how his music changed his life.
He highlights the intriguing characters that surrounded Cooke, from the
crotchety but creative Art Rupe, czar of Specialty Records, to Barbara
Campbell, Cooke's second wife. While the book chronicles both the good
and bad, the edifying and theindecent, Wolff treats Cooke with critical
appreciation.
From The Publisher:
In late 1957, when "You Send Me" burst upon the pop scene and shot to
number one, it was seen as a phenomenal debut by a young unknown.
But in African-American communities across the nation, Sam Cooke was
already one of gospel music's most charismatic stars - and his crossover
into rock 'n' roll heralded the beginning of a new era. The remarkable
string of hits that followed - "Only Sixteen," "Chain Gang," "Cupid,"
"Twistin' the Night Away," "Bring It on Home to Me," "Havin' a Party,"
"Shake" - earned Cooke the title of The Man Who Invented Soul Music. At
the same time, Cooke became one of the music business's first
African-American entrepreneurs, fighting for the publishing rights to his
songs and founding his own record label. Enmeshed in the beginnings of
the civil rights movement, he crisscrossed the country insisting that rock
'n' roll be fully integrated. And he encouraged younger singers like Aretha
Franklin and Smokey Robinson to follow his crossover example. Despite
a near-fatal car accident and the tragic death of his infant son, Sam
Cooke managed to forge a career that artists such as Rod Stewart, Keith
Richards, and Aaron Neville still revere. Indeed, Sam Cooke was one of
the first names inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Just as
Cooke achieved a new level of success with sold-out appearances at New
York's Copacabana, his life came to a sudden end: He was discovered
half-naked in a seedy, south Los Angeles motel with a bullet through his
heart. His was a murder that is still viewed by many as inexplicable - and
unsolved.
