Sam Cooke
By the early 1960s, the sound of change didn’t come from a trumpet or a piano.
It came smooth. Polished. Radio-ready.
Sam Cooke’s voice felt effortless, like it had always been there. Love songs. Dance floors. Hooks that stuck in your head for days. The kind of records that slipped easily onto the charts.
But offstage, Cooke was paying attention.
After being turned away from a whites-only motel while touring, he started writing differently. Investing differently, too. He pushed for ownership of his music, built his own publishing and label deals, and quietly worked toward something bigger than hits. Control. Independence. Leverage.
Some artists protested with volume.
Cooke did it with precision.
When he finally recorded A Change Is Gonna Come, it didn’t sound like a speech. It sounded like a promise. Widely regarded as one of the defining songs of the civil rights era, it carried the weight of everything he’d seen on the road and everything the country was trying not to see.
Cupid:
Wonderful World:
Bring It On Home to Me:
Chain Gang:
A Change Is Gonna Come:
This is an open thread
