12/11/1964 - Another human tragedy hits the musical world of entertainment when singer, songwriter, composer, producer and black entrepreneur, 33-year-old Sam Cooke, dies under mysterious circumstances at a seedy motel on Figueroa Street in El Segundo, California.
Cooke
The fifth of eight children born to Rev. Charles Cook (Sam will add an "E" to his last name in 1957 to signify he is starting a new life), a minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness) and his wife, Annie Mae. Samuel Cook begins his short life in Clarksdale, Mississippi on January 22, 1931. Moving to Chicago, Illinois with his family in 1933 (his 35-year-old father is determined to place his family in a location with better opportunities ... he instills in his family the concepts of always doing the best you can at whatever you are doing, hold your head high and stand up for yourself, always support your family, and get respect by giving respect ... he is also a harsh taskmaster that doesn't want his children's bodies or minds polluted by sports and the world of movies), Cook attends Doolittle Elementary School and Wendell Phillips Academy High School (a school that produced Nat "King" Cole only a few years before). His musical gifts are noted early and at the age of six he is performing with his siblings in a group aptly called The Singing Children. Singing with family, performing before audiences of popsicle sticks, impressing neighborhood friends (one will be the crooner, Lou Rawls), Sam determines quite young that music will be his life's work.
Parents
Young Sam
Course set, at the age of fourteen, Sam becomes the lead singer of the gospel group, the Highway Q.C.'s. The gig with the Q.C.'s in turn leads to his taking over the lead singer and tenor position from R. H. Harris, in the gospel group The Soul Stirrers (a group formed in 1926 that will remain viable for over eighty years). With a recording contract already in place, the group becomes a major showcase for Sam's talents and young girls begin rushing the stage when the Stirrers are performing, just to get a look at the group's handsome 19-year-old singer ... in 1951, the group's first recorded song with Sam doing the lead honors is "Jesus Gave Me Water." Problems develop though when under the alias of "Dale Cook," Sam begins stretching his wings recording popular secular music, the first song of which is a tune called "Loveable." Asked to leave the group but owed royalties, angered that the head of his record studio doesn't like the music that interests Sam, in lieu of money, Cooke is let out of his contract and with the help of A&R man, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, signs with a newly formed record label, Keen Records and with the 1957 release of Cooke's (the record will at first be credited to Sam's younger brother, L.C., so that Specialty Records, the Soul Stirrers' label, will not receive any of the profits) smash hit, "You Send Me" (a tune that will go to #1 on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues and Hot 100 charts, chart at #1 for six weeks as an R&B song, and three weeks at #1 on the pop charts, sell over 1.5 million copies and will eventually be ranked at #115 on the Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time listing ... it is also the tune that knocks Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" out of the #1 spot on the charts), Sam becomes an overnight superstar.
The Q.C.'s - Sam At Bottom Left
The Soul Stirrers - Sam At Top Left
Scoring with both blacks and whites, men and women (he becomes use to having women at his concert throw their panties at him), youngsters and old timers, songs from Cooke's Keen days include, "Tammy," "Ol' Man River," "Ain't Bisbehavin'," "Someday," "Wonderful World," "When I Fall in Love," "My Foolish Heart," "God Bless the Child," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "They Can't Take That Away from Me." But most of the music belongs to other people, and in 1959, upset with the size of the cut he is getting from royalties, Cooke leaves Keen and signs a contract with RCA Victor Records that gives him the money he is seeking, plus the ability to write and record his own material (it is also during this period of time that his finances begin being managed by the infamous future guru to The Beatles and Rolling Stones, Allen Klein). It is the freedom Cooke needs to become "The King of Soul," and the hits keep coming ... "A Change is Gonna Come," Cupid," "Frankie and Johnny," "Sad Mood," "Another Saturday Night,""Chain Gang," "Twistin' the Night Away," "Bring It On Home to Me" (with his old friend, Lou Rawls, on backup vocals) and a host of others. So many hits (he will have 29 Top 40 hit singles on the pop charts during his career, and even more on the R&B charts) that Cooke branches out and starts his own record label, SAR Records, a publishing and management company, KAGS, and a holding company named after his daughter, Tracey, Ltd., treading a path other black performers will be able follow over the ensuing years.
First Album
Twistin' Album
Super Star
Hanging out with celebrities that include Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., and a host of others, becoming a major figure in the early days of the Civil Rights movement (his song, "A Change is Goin' Come" will become an anthem of the movement) marrying, and having a family, Sam Cooke seemingly has the world in his pocket during the early 60s, but there is trouble on the horizon. Kept in check by his conservative father, with success, Cooke meets lots of marginal individuals all wanting to profit from knowing Sam, his eye for the ladies is given full reign (his first marriage will end in a 1958 divorce, his second, to Barbara Campbell will result in three children, he will have three children out of wedlock, he will settle out of court with Connie Bolling in 1958 about fathering her son, and there will be too many assignations to count, including a never acknowledged affair with Aretha Franklin) and he begins drinking to excess (some a reaction to being in a 1958 car crash that takes the life of his chauffeur, Edward Cunningham and having his two-year-old son, Vincent, drown in the family swimming pool).
Cooke & Clay
Tuesday evening, 12/10/1964, finds Cooke celebrating the success of his recently released "Live" album, "Sam Cooke at the Copa," by having a late Italian dinner at Martoni's, an Italian restaurant and record industry hangout just south of the legendary Capitol Records building, with the record's producer, Al Schmitt, and Schmitt's wife, Joan. Dressed in a stylish Sy Devore suit, the handsome singer polishes off four martini's, flash a roll of bills about that totals in the thousands, and is joined at his table constantly by well wishers, eventually being drug into the bar area where Cooke treats the patrons to a round of drinks, while keeping an eye on the woman he has picked as his next conquest, a baby-faced 22-year-old British-Asian named Elisa Boyer that has been arrested numerous times for prostitution using aliases Lisa Boyer, Lisa Lee, Crystal Chang Young, and Elsie Nakama, cops will describe Boyer as "the perfect little Chinese doll."). A change in plans for the evening, when called back to the dining room by the Schmitts because their orders have arrived, Cooke tells the couple to go ahead without him and he'll meet up with them later at West Hollywood's P.J.'s nightclub, then he goes back to his woe job on Boyer. At 1:00 in the morning they leave Martoni's in Cooke's new cherry red Ferrari 250 GTL Lusso (after his death, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson will purchase the car), and head for P.J.'s, arriving there only to discover the Schmitts have already gone ... at 2:00 in the morning the couple leave and the mystery begins as boyer claims she asks Cooke to take her home, while appears to have other plans, getting on the freeway and heading for a hobo hotel near the airport that charges only three dollars an hour for rooms which many travelers use for quickie sex, the Hacienda Motel (the rental rooms change their name to the Star Motel, and in 1998 the place is pulled down and becomes a Numero Uno market).
Martoni's
Boyer
P.J.'s
The Hacienda
Walking up to the glass partition at the manager's office, Sam is told by the motel's manager, 55-year-old Mrs. Bertha Lee Franklin (an ex-madam with a criminal record), who sees Boyer waiting in the car, that he can't have a room unless he registers as Mr. & Mrs. Cooke, which Sam does, then returns to his car, drives around to the back of the motel, parks, and takes his pickup for the evening into the room Cooke has acquired ... according to Boyer later, still asking to be taken home, she is drug into the room, forced on to the bed, and then attacked by the crooner. Strangely though, before raping Boyer, Cooke takes a break to go to the bathroom and Boyer uses the time to grab her and Sam's clothes, run out of the assigned unit in her bra and slip, bang on the door to the manager's office, then flees down the street, finds a phone booth, and while getting dressed, calls the police. Back at the Hacienda, an irate and drunken Cooke (his blood/alcohol level is at 0.16 when .08 is considered to be too drunk to drive in the state), believing he has fallen prey to an old prostitute scam of take the john's clothes and money and then run, leaves the bathroom, jumps in his car, and drives back around to the motel's office and begins attacking the locked door with his fists and shoulder while screaming at Franklin repeatedly "Where's the girl?" and "Let me in!" Wary of reports that a prowler has been hanging around the motel, confronted by a stranger wearing only a sports coat and one shoe, Franklin instead calls the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr to report that a maniac is attacking the office, and as Carr listens on the other end of the line, she is ringside for Cooke's last moments on Earth. With a loud crash, Cooke's shoulder bests the office door and Sam tussles with a woman that he is taller than, but who outweighs the slender singer by 30 pounds. Destroying furniture as they crash about the office, biting and scratching, Franklin finally kicks loose of Cooke, grabs a pistol off a nearby television, and at close range, fires three times at her attacker. Two of the bullets miss, slamming into one of the office walls, while the third round strikes Cooke in the chest ... a round that enters his left side, and then goes through his left lung, heart, and right lung. With a perplexed look of surprise, Cooke looks down at his chest and says the last words of his life, "You shot me lady." Then he launches one more attack on Franklin, which the manager stops with broom blows to the crooner's head, before Cooke slides down a wall and dies on the office floor at roughly 3:15 in the morning.
Franklin
Removing The Body
With tests showing Cooke was inebriated, Boyer (a month after the shooting, Boyer will be arrested for prostitution, and in 1979 she will be found guilty of second degree murder in the death of her boyfriend an will be sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars) and Franklin (she will quit her job over all the death threats she receives, win a judgment of $30,000 in the $200,000 lawsuit she brings against Cooke's estate, and die of coronary artery disease in Michigan in 1989) both passing lie detector questioning, and the testimony of Carr, a local coroner's jury rules (the proceedings last only two hours) the shooting a "justifiable homicide" (the lawyer representing Cooke will only be allowed to ask one question during the proceedings) Shocked at the news that Cooke is gone at only 33, funeral services are first held for Cooke at the A.R. Leak Funeral Home in Chicago, Illinois ... 200,000 people show up and form a line four city blocks long (there will be three days of viewing) to see the singer one more time (his $4,000 casket has a glass lid through which Cooke's remains can be seen). After, the body is returned to Los Angeles for funeral number two; the service takes place at the Mount Sinai Baptist Church (Ray Charles will sing "The Angels Keep Watching Over Me" and there will be musical presentations by the Staple Sisters, Billy Preston, and Lou Rawls), and Cooke is later interned at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California in the facility's "Garden of Honor" (surrounded by fellow superstars that include writer Louis L'Amour, Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum, Hopalong Cassidy actor William Boyd, cartoonist, studio head, and amusement park owner Wal Disney, singer Nat King Cole, silent film star Mary Pickford, comedian Red Skelton, cowboy actor Tom Mix, entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., comedian W.C. Fields, actress Jean Harlow, swashbuckler Errol Flynn, actor Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, and Academy Award winners Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, and Humphrey Bogart).
Boyer Testifies
Some Of The Mourners
Over and out, although Cooke's death is considered "justified," many of his friends and family are never quite satisfied with the findings of the coroner's jury, and although evidence is never forthcoming to reopen the case officially, they offer up alternate theories for the shooting and a host of questions that notoriously remain unanswered ... why did boxer Muhammed Ali, singer Etta James and many other Cooke friends note his corpse appeared to have a horribly broken nose, busted up hands that looked like every finger had been broken, and a head that was barely attached to his body, where did all of Cooke's credit cards go, what happened to the huge roll of cash Cooke was carrying, why weren't Cooke's clothes ever found, was Cooke actually murdered by members of the KKK for his support of the civil rights movement of the 1960's, was Cooke killed for not listening to Mafia music insiders, was Cooke's second wife Barbara involved in his death (knowing the many infidelities of her husband, she is having an affair with a local bartender, and 66 days after Sam's death, Barbara marries Cooke's guitar player and back-up singer, 21-year-old Bobby Womack), was the death the result of a recent argument, heard by many, over manager Allen Klein's mismanagement of Cooke's song catalog? Questions without answers, Cooke now rests for eternity surrounded by fellow superstars ... in 1986, he becomes a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio (the first batch of honorees also includes Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and a guy named Elvis Presley).
Cooke
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