Having A Party For Sam

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 9, 2005 5:26PM

There’s a decent barroom argument to be had over whether Sam Cooke or Ray Charles can rightly be called the inventor of soul music. Both men took the structures and idioms of gospel music and adapted them to create a new, modern sound. Though it took Brother Ray a few years before he moved away from aping Charles Brown and Nat King Cole, Cooke’s voice was so distinctive that when he released his first pop song, “Loveable,” under the name Dale Cook, gospel audiences immediately recognized his familiar tenor.

The voice was formed, in part, by Cooke’s upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. The original son of a preacher man, Cooke was born in Clarksdale, MS and moved with his family to Chicago at the age of two. Though he garnered straight-A’s in high school, Cooke’s musical education came from the number of gospel groups he performed in like The Singing Children, the Highway QC’s and, most famously, the Soul Strirrers. Though he’d go on to national acclaim as a pop artist, Cooke’s heart remained in the South Side as he married here and went on to form SAR Records, the first record label owned by a black artist.

The Sun-Times’ Dave Hoekstra wrote up an excellent package on Sam Cooke last week. He spoke with gospel and soul legends like Solomon Burke and Otis Clay, examined Sam’s posthumous release “A Change Is Gonna Come” and explored how Cooke’s influence stretches into today’s works like the “I Believe To My Soul” compilation put together by Joe Henry (found at your local Starbucks).

Two events this week celebrate the life and music of Sam Cooke. Tomorrow at the DuSable Museum, Peter Guralnick, author of Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, along with Sam’s brother L.C. Cooke, and Herb Kent will lead a free panel discussion on Sam starting at 7 PM. Then head out to the ‘burbs for “A Sam Cooke Celebration” at Fitzgerald’s with Otis Clay, L.C. Cooke and many others including a 20-member all-star choir. Tickets are $15.