Fast and dirty Sam Cooke story?

Cooke and sketchy lady friend speed away from a party to the Hacienda Hotel in L.A.; lady friend claims Cooke gets handsy, so she tiptoes her way outta there with a pocketful of Cooke’s wad; Cooke stomps around the Hacienda campus scanning the darkness for her, frightening the hotel manager to the point that she…cracks him with a couple of .22s and bludgeons him with a broomstick, witches-and-warlocks style?! Yikes! Of course the best detail is Cooke’s missing shoe and undershirtless sports coat, but let’s show some respect, maybe? Maybe?

Anyway, prior to that alleged crime, Cooke was mos def responsible for other crimes, including being a bad student; worshiping false idols; working on a chain gang; and twistin’ his nights away. But he also put some heavy, kickass business down on tape. The heaviest? Certainly “A Change is Gonna Come” in 1963. This is a muscular, anthemic track that rightfully still carries a lot of the momentum of 1960s civil rights work.

“Change” is reported to be a response, at least in part, to an incident in Shreveport, La where Cooke and his entourage were initially booked at a Holiday Inn but refused a room upon arrival. Looking past the fact that they even wanted to stay at a Holiday Inn – which is funny – the open racial bastardry of those Holiday Innsters made Cooke, you know, pissed the fuxk off. So he honked his horn and probably yelled and whatever else you do when you’re denied something because of your race. And all the white desk clerks and middle managers panicked, of course, and called the cops and Cooke was shuffled off to the hoosegow.

Following this event, among others, Cooke finished off this frank, curt statement about the plight of African Americans in the U.S. up to the mid 1960s. It’s especially interesting because it essentially says “watch the fuxk out, folks,” but does so within a lavish, acceptable arrangement.

Ideally, in part this track forged a future in which your average Holiday Inn desk clerk isn’t likely to engage in open racial hostility, but it takes zero effort to pull up stories of some terrible, terrible, terrible racist shit going down even today.¹

Anyway, it’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” but not Sam Cooke’s version with the strings and all of that bullshit. Strings ruin songs. Most of the time, anyway, and this is one of them. Imagine how awesome this song would be if Cooke recorded it in a room full of percussionists. Just percussionists and Cooke’s voice. Right?

Nevermind, then, that it’s a version that’s…strings! Or “string,” more like it – it’s Ben Sollee doing this song with just a cello from Louisville’s NuLuFest. It’s pretty good, really. Nice and sparse and pretty powerful if you can handle hearing this come from a white NPR darling from Lexington, KY.

MAPPING IT

Bad news outta the Hacienda Hotel one night.

HEARING IT

• “Soul man who signed in for a violent death,” Western Daily Press: October 11: 2005.
• “Soul Man,” The New York Times (Late Edition): November 20, 2005.
• “Rolling on Rock’s Long Road,” The Herald (Glasgow): May 17, 1997.
• Capture from “Sam Cooke Slain in Coast Motel: Singing Star Shot to Death in Los Angeles Incident,” New York Times:†1964,†December†12.
• ‘Dream Boogie’: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke. NPR. 2005