Sam Cooke (1931–1964) was one of the foundational figures of soul music, crossing over from gospel stardom with the Soul Stirrers to pop in 1957 with You Send Me. A Change Is Gonna Come remains a civil rights landmark; Night Beat (1963) and the Harlem Square Club live set are where to start. Find Sam Cooke vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Samuel Cook was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on January 22, 1931 and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He launched his recording career as the lead vocalist of the foundational gospel group the Soul Stirrers (1950-1957). His 1957 crossover from gospel to secular pop music (releasing You Send Me under his stage name Sam Cooke) established the foundational template for contemporary soul music. He launched his own SAR Records label in 1959 (launching the careers of Bobby Womack, Johnnie Taylor, and others) and established his own business infrastructure (Tracey Limited management and publishing company), unprecedented for Black artists of his era. His 1964 composition A Change Is Gonna Come (inspired by Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind and his own Holiday Inn racial discrimination incident) became one of the most important civil rights anthems in popular music history. He was shot and killed at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964 at age 33 by motel manager Bertha Franklin. The case was officially ruled justifiable homicide, but the official narrative has remained controversial. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. His foundational influence on soul music, R&B, and broader popular music history is widely cited as one of the most important contributions to the form.
Sam Cooke's sound is foundational to soul music as a recognized genre - combining soul, R&B, pop, gospel, and rock and roll with his distinctive vocal delivery (use of melismatic phrasing and gospel-influenced approach), and arrangements drawing on classic gospel and R&B traditions alongside contemporary pop influences. His foundational influence on soul music is widely documented.
Original Specialty Records (his Soul Stirrers gospel era), Keen Records, and RCA Victor pressings of the Sam Cooke catalog are foundational items in soul music collecting.
Listeners new to Sam Cooke typically start with Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 (1985 release) or Night Beat (1963).
