Sunday, July 17th
sounds of Chicago
Soul Stirrers (feat. Willie Rogers), “A Change Is Gonna Come” (S. Cooke)
Live, 1989
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Tag: Sam Cooke
2016
2015
Sunday, January 11th
two takes
“Jesus Gave Me Water” (L. Campbell)
Original Five Blind Boys (Archie Brownlee, lead vocals), 1950
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Soul Stirrers (Sam Cooke, lead vocals), 1951
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-), Young Tuxedo Brass Band, New Orleans, 1959
2014
Sunday, November 9th
That gospel feeling is in all of this music.
—Solomon Burke
Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music, Episode 2: Sam Cooke, with Mavis Staples, Bobby Womack, Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, et al., BBC, 2005
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), The Plough and the Song, 1946
2014
Sunday, April 13th
sounds of Chicago
Before “A Change Is Gonna Come,” before “Chain Gang,” before “You Send Me,” before . . .
Soul Stirrers (feat. Sam Cooke [1931-1964])
“Touch the Hem of His Garment,” 1956
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“Nearer My God To Thee,” live, Los Angeles, 1955
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lagniappe
reading table
Gray hairs being plucked,
and from below my pillow
a cricket singing—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
2013
Friday, July 12th
D’Angelo (with Questlove, drums; Pino Palladino, bass; Kuumba Frank Lacy, trombone, trumpet; Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, guitar; Anthony Hamilton, vocals, et al.), live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 2000
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
No stage anywhere in the world can compare with the one that exists in the imagination. Where else can you find Jimi Hendrix jamming with Miles Davis? Sam Cooke singing with Smokey Robinson? Sly Stone taking everybody higher with Sun Ra?
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Happy Birthday, Suzanne!
2012
Sunday, 10/14/12
Bobby testifies.
The Womack Brothers (with Bobby, then 17, on lead vocal), “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” (SAR Records [Sam Cooke’s label]; rec. 6/28/1961, Universal Recording Studios, Chicago)
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The next year, as the Valentinos, they recorded this.
The Valentinos (with Bobby on lead vocal), “Lookin’ For A Love” (SAR Records, 1962)
2011
Sunday, 6/26/11
two takes
The Mighty Clouds of Joy, “I Made A Step,” live
Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1981
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Nashville, 2005
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
Greatest musical intersection in the world?
Chicago’s South Side, W. 36th St. (Honorary Sam Cooke Way, as of this month) and S. Cottage Grove Ave. (Honorary Albertina Walker & The Caravans Drive)
Photo credit: Bob Marovich, The Black Gospel Blog
2009
Sunday, 10/4/09
On July 22, 1955, Sam Cooke took the stage at Los Angeles’s Shrine Auditorium. He was 24 years old. He sang that day with the Soul Stirrers, the gospel group he joined—as the new lead singer—when he was 19.
Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, “Nearer My God To Thee,” live, 1955, Los Angeles
More:
Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, “Be With Me Jesus,” live, 1955, Los Angeles
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lagniappe
Sam [Cooke] was shaped in large measure by the Soul Stirrers during their rehearsals. He reacted to them as they pushed him, like a good rhythm section inspires an instrumentalist.—Art Rupe (in Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke [2005])
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Of course, Sam did his best work in gospel. How you gonna take somebody who loves what he’s doing and turn him around and put him in something unfamiliar and he’s gonna be as free and natural as he was at home?—Dorothy Love Coates (in Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times [1971])
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reading table
How astonishing to see, yesterday, for the first time, a film snippet (the only known to exist) of Anne Frank.
This apparently dates from 1941, when Anne was 13. The couple walking out of the building are newlyweds—the woman’s a neighbor. That’s Anne leaning out the window.
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Yesterday I also heard this episode of the radio show “This American Life,” which features people whose lives were changed by books.
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Also yesterday (big day), while driving around doing this and that, I heard bits and pieces of this interview with the great Nick Hornby (author of, among other things, High Fidelity).
music clip of the day 