Happy Birthday Sam Cooke!

Sam Cooke would have been 80 years old yesterday. Born Sam Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, that small town so central to many of the events that altered the course of music history, he started out as a gospel singer. He came to fame as the lead singer of the Soul Stirrers who, along with the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, were the biggest gospel groups of their day.

In 1956, he crossed over to pop and RnB releasing "You Send Me,"  the first in a string of 29 top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with many more on the RnB charts. "You Send Me" was a smash, and maybe his biggest hit. It pigeonholed Sam at first, as an African American singer whose appeal was mainly to white audiences. Sam appeared in many of the top white nightclubs of the day, such as New York's Copacabana as most of the so-called "Negro" or "Race Music" acts of the time were relegated to the "Chitlin" circuit of nightclubs. Sam's appeal, as time went on, grew in the African American community while he lost little of his appeal to whites.

 His music became less Pop and more RnB as Sam became aware of the nascent civil rights movement. In 1963 and 1964 he released his greatest albums, "Night Beat" and "Ain't That Good News." From the latter came the song, "A Change Is Gonna Come" which only hit #31 on the Billboard Charts with only a #9 placement on the RnB Charts. At the time, it was a minor hit, but perhaps a precursor for what was yet to come. The song was an early protest tune and has grown in stature since it's release. It is #12 on the Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs of All Time.

Sam was tragically gunned down in a still mysterious incident at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964 at the age of 33. At the time of his death, Sam was arguably the biggest African American Star in show business. A talent clearly taken from us as he was starting to produce his greatest work.

Shout out to music fan Dermott Carr for reminding me of the birthday of this legend.