Saturday Soul – Sam Cooke

“A Change Is Gonna Come” must be one of the greatest songs ever written and to me for that alone Sam Cooke deserves his legendary status.

“A Change Is Gonna Come” – Sam Cooke

I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like that river i’ve been running ever since
It’s been a long time coming
But i know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

It’s been too hard living, but i’m afraid to die
Cos i don’t know what’s out there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But i know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

And then i go to see my brother
And i ask him to help me please
And he just winds up knockin’ me
Back down on my knees

There were times when i thought i couldn’t last for long
But now i think i’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, been a long time coming
But i know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

Repeat verse 2

To buy Sam Cooke music click HERE

Soul singer Sam Cooke was acclaimed as “a bravura vocal stylist who blazed the path for a generation of singers from Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett to Aretha Franklin and Al Green,” by Jim Miller in Newsweek. A prominent feature on the music scene from the early 1950s, when he sang with the black gospel group the Soul Stirrers, through a solo pop career that ended when he was shot to death in late 1964, Cooke “became famous for letting his voice glide over every syllable of a song in a sustained lyrical caress,” according to Miller. Popular with black and white audiences alike, Cooke–who wrote most of his own material–is remembered for such hit songs as “You Send Me,” “Only Sixteen,” “Wonderful World,” “Cupid,” and “Chain Gang.”

Cooke was keenly aware of the music around him, and was particularly entranced by Bob Dylan‘s song “Blowin’ in the Wind,” its treatment of the plight of black Americans and other politically oppressed minorities, and its success in the hands of Peter, Paul & Mary — all of these factors convinced him that the time was right for songs that dealt with more than twisting the night away.

The result was “A Change Is Gonna Come,” perhaps the greatest song to come out of the civil rights struggle, and one that seemed to close and seal the gap between the two directions of Cooke’s career, from gospel to pop. Arguably his greatest and his most important song, it was an artistic apotheosis for Cooke. During this same period, he had also devised a newer, more advanced dance-oriented soul sound in the form of the song “Shake.” These two recordings heralded a new era for Cooke and a new phase of his career, with seemingly the whole world open to him.

None of it was to be. Early in the day on December 11, 1964, while in Los Angeles, Cooke became involved in an altercation at a seedy motel, with a woman guest and the night manager, and was shot to death while allegedly trying to attack the manager. The case is still shrouded in doubt and mystery, and was never investigated the way the murder of a star of his stature would be today. Cooke’s death shocked the black community and reverberated far beyond — his single “Shake” was a posthumous Top Ten hit, as were “A Change Is Gonna Come” and the At the Copa album, released in 1965. Otis Redding, Al Green, and Solomon Burke, among others, picked up key parts of Cooke’s repertory, as did white performers, including the Animals and the Rolling Stones. Even the Supremes recorded a memorial album of his songs, which is now one of the most sought-after of their original recordings, in either LP or CD form.

For a full biography click HERE

If interested you will find the other hree parts of this documentary on YouTube……enjoy.

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