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>Cooke, a Chicago native, began his music career in his teens when he and his brother were part of a gospel quartet called the Highway Q.C.s. In the mid-'50s, he was part of a gospel ensemble called the Soul Stirrers with six other members; Cooke sang lead vocal and the group recorded for Specialty Records. He decided to cross over to pop music sometime later but Speciality rejected that idea so Cooke and producer Bumps Blackwell left to join a newly started R&B label called Keen Records. He cut "You Send Me" and it was released in October 1957--although Cooke wrote the song himself, he credited it to his brother as he was concerned that Keen might try to abscond with his songwriting royalties otherwise.
>What happened next was one of the most remarkable turns of events in pop music history. "You Send Me" rocketed to the top of the charts and ultimately made #1 on the Billboard as the disc went on to sell 3 million copies and placed in the top 20 biggest selling records of 1957. This was all in spite of the singer being an unknown recording on an indie R&B label at a time when R&B was usually avoided by white pop radio. Within a few weeks, Teresa Brewer knocked out a quickie cover on Coral Records but despite having all the advantages of an established white pop singer and major label backing/radio play, her version of "You Send Me" only reached #15 on the Billboard (it was also the last time Brewer placed a top 20 hit).
>Cooke became an almost overnight star and continued recording on Keen until getting a major label contract with RCA in 1960.
>>127097749 (OP)and then he did the stupidest thing possible and died. the end.
>>127097749 (OP)Poor Sam should've stuck with gospel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfhEE7NPVjY
>>127097749 (OP)>Within a few weeks, Teresa Brewer knocked out a quickie cover on Coral Records but despite having all the advantages of an established white pop singer and major label backing/radio play, her version of "You Send Me" only reached #15 on the Billboard (it was also the last time Brewer placed a top 20 hit).It's a cute cover she did but it's just not the original. One of those songs that came out so perfectly that no cover was ever going to improve on it.
Nicolette Larson had the worst cover of You Send Me ever.
What a soulful motherfucker
>Sam was always ambitious. He always knew exactly what he wanted to do. When we were very little boys, we were playing, and he had these popsicle sticks — you know, those little wooden sticks? He had about twenty of them, lined them up, stuck them in the ground, and said, “This is my audience, see? I’m gonna sing to these sticks. This prepare me for my future.” Another time he said, “Hey, C., you know what?” I said, “What?” He said, “I figured out my life, man. I’m never gonna have a nine-to-five job.” I said, “What you mean, Sam?” He said, “Man, I figured out the whole system. It’s designed, if you work, to keep you working; all you do is live from payday to payday — at the end of the week you broke again. The system is designed like that.” And I’m listening. I’m seven and he’s nine, and he’s talking about “the system”! I said, “What are you gonna do, then, if you ain’t gonna work, Sam?” He said, “I’m gonna sing, and I’m going to make me a lot of money.” And that’s just what he did.
>>127097968she was better at swallowing Neil Young's cum than she ever was at music
>>127098313>>127098301I can imagine what it must have been like in the 50s to sit through a never-ending nightmare of Pat Boone and Gogi Grant.
>>127098029Shit now I think maybe the government really did have something to do with it.
>>127101664Its time to make change that's what Sammy said
Two shots in the dark now Sammy's dead
>>127097749 (OP)Greatest male voice of all time
>Musically, Rock and Roll hall of Fame charter member Sam Cooke is a stumper. His voice wasn't just smooth and gritty at the same time, it was also infinitely relaxed--for the many who adore it, a sing-the-phonebook voice. But he was so intent on the pop market that some curmudgeons might prefer the phone book to his orchestral accompaniments. Fortunately, these albums avoid his clumsier commercial endeavors. Even so, bypass Best of for Abkco's 30-track Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964, which includes all of its 15 songs. But Night Beat gets points for conceiving pop as lounge R&B rather than violin schlock, even if Cooke isn't always up to the blues-tinged standards he covers and tries to write. And Live at the Harlem Square Club, recorded at a black venue, takes his hits fast and rough. Mythmakers claim this is the real Cooke, which he would have denied. But it's an impressive document whose rousing climax suggests what might have ensued if he hadn't died two years later.
>>127101664Chuck Berry had "Promised Land" too but that was after he got out of jail.
>>127101783I agree a lot of those string ballads from the 50s-60s can be hard to sit through.
the talented are taken from us too soon while Pat Boone gets to live to be 290 years old
>>127097749 (OP)Sam belonged to the late '50s "new wave" of pop singers along with Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, and soon Roy Orbison. Their sound had more cool to it and moved further away from the standards/big band era than did the pop that dominated the early '50s.
Prefer him to Marvin and Otis. Smokey's also good
>>127102063Point of reference. Boone was born the same year as Cooke, who died 60 years ago.
>>127102063Pat's lack of talent is no reason to wish death on him. It's just music. He lived wisely and healthily, which are far more important at the end of the day.
>>127103406Well anyway most of the surviving singers from that time are white the black ones are mostly all gone they don't live as long in general.
>>127103409Don't ask me how that old white trash ho Jaye P. Morgan (who is older than Boone by a few years) is still around.
a lot of pre-rock singers did live to 80+ they had a higher average LE than many rock guys
