A lot of people say Sam Cooke invented soul music.<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t see it quite like that.\u00a0 Not because Sam Cooke wasn\u2019t the most pivotal figure in the early history of the soul genre — he absolutely was — but because I don\u2019t entirely buy the idea that individual artists \u201cinvent\u201d genres.<\/p>\n
Like other similarly singular and vital figures in music history, Cooke didn\u2019t so much invent soul music as see clearly and harness effectively its potential before anyone else.\u00a0 It\u2019s a vision thing, you see, and that, Sam Cooke had in abundance.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Cooke emerged from the gospel tradition, having been a member of the Soul Stirrers, one of the nation\u2019s leading gospel groups, since 1950.\u00a0 His years singing inspirational music paralleled the rise of artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, who employed the emerging sound of rock and roll to bridge the gap between white and black audiences and appeal to both.\u00a0 By 1956, Cooke had established himself as the lead vocalist and chief songwriter of the Soul Stirrers \u2013 and he was eager to move on to bigger challenges.\u00a0 He was determined to reach a broader audience, and to do that he would have to break the gospel community\u2019s greatest taboo and sing secular music.<\/p>\n
His first foray into pop music in 1957 launched him full force into the mainstream, as \u201cYou Send Me\u201d shot to #1 and sold over two million copies.\u00a0 The music was pop in the style of the day, an unthreatening midtempo tune with bland (and suspiciously white) female background vocals, but Cooke\u2019s delivery drew on both gospel and rhythm and blues influences, pushing his sophisticated, rather Nat King Cole-ish voice into stratospheric \u201cwoa-oa-oa-oa\u201ds on the chorus, suggested unplumbed depths of feeling that Cooke would tap into more and more as time went on. <\/p>\n
Primarily a singles artist during his brief career, Cooke would go on to score one hit after another with early soul classics like \u201cEverybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll Come Running Back To You,\u201d \u201c(What A) Wonderful World,\u201d \u201cBring It On Home To Me,\u201d \u201cAnother Saturday Night\u201d and \u201cTwistin\u2019 The Night Away.\u201d\u00a0 Each found Cooke using his gospel chops to push the vocals higher, harder and stronger, to pour more and more emotion into the grooves he was laying down.\u00a0 At the same time, he was one of the first artists in music history to seek and gain control over his own artistic and financial destiny.\u00a0 He wrote his own songs, founded his own publishing company to handle the rights, and founded a record label to distribute the works of fellow artists.<\/p>\n
Between 1957 and 1965, Cooke scored 29 Top 40 hits on the In the vast middle section you get the aforementioned bushel of immortal crossover hits, plus landmark proto-soul numbers like \u201cSugar Dumpling,\u201d with its accelerated, finger-snapping rhythm, and \u201cShake,\u201d propelled by a frenetic beat, dynamic horns and Cooke\u2019s deliriously emotive vocals.\u00a0 Near the end you catch a glimpse of what might have been the next phase of Cooke\u2019s ongoing evolution as an artist, in the form of \u201cA Change Is Gonna Come.\u201d\u00a0 Taking a cue from Dylan\u2019s \u201cBlowin\u2019 In The Wind\u201d and his own personal involvement in the civil rights movement, Cooke composed a sweeping, brilliant gospel-blues anthem whose resonance reflected in equal parts the quality of the composition and the commitment of the artist.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Portrait Of A Legend<\/i> is easily the best Cooke collection out there based on tracklisting alone.\u00a0 Add the excellent sound restoration and digital transfer work done on the original recordings, and a booklet full of annotations explaining the origins and significance of each song, and you\u2019ve got an exceptional package.\u00a0 <\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to claim that Sam Cooke invented soul music — I\u2019ll leave that for you to judge — but if you\u2019re looking to study the evidence firsthand, this collection is everything you\u2019ll ever need, spanning Cooke\u2019s entire musical vision from its gospel start to its interrupted finish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8175],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40832","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sam-cooke","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40832"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}