Sam Cooke 43 Years After His Murder; Still Some Speculation

Last week was the 40th anniversary of Otis Redding, along with six of his bandmate's death in plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin. After doing my "write up":CH about Otis, I figured it would be a shame to not follow up with the story of Sam Cooke.Sam Cooke has been accredited as many things: the most important soul singer (recognized by some to be the inventor of soul music), one of the first recording artists to attend to the business side of his music(he founded his own label and publishing company) and most importantly an active member of the Civil Rights Movement using his musical ability to bridge gaps between black and white audiences(see video below).Cook (who later added the "e" to his last name to make it sound "more classy") was born January 21, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He began his musical career as a member of a quartet with his siblings, The Singing Children, and, as a teenager, he was a member of the Highway QCs, a gospel group. In 1950, at the age of 19, he joined The Soul Stirrers and achieved significant success and fame within the gospel community.Later in 1957, Cooke signed with Keen Records. His first release was "You Send Me", the B-side of his first Keen Single (the A-side was a reworking of George Gershwin's "Summertime".) which spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song also had massive mainstream success, spending three weeks at #1 on the Billboard pop chart. In addition to his success in writing his own songs and achieving mainstream fame — a truly remarkable accomplishment for an R&B singer at that time — Cooke continued to astonish the music business in the 1960s with the founding of his own label, SAR Records.Cooke went on to record major hits such as "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World" and "Bring It on Home to Me."Sam's life and work as one of the first recording artist to break racial boundaries with his music has in a sense been overshadowed by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Sam was murdered in a 3 dollar night "no-tell motel" by the establishment's manager.The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record states that Cooke was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me," before finally falling, mortally wounded.Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Due to inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses, as well as other circumstantial evidence (e.g. cash Cooke was reportedly carrying that was never recovered, and the fact that Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke, and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him, rather than in order to escape an attempted rape.Ultimately though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events, but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder took place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder. None have been able to provide any evidence of this, however.In her autobiography, "Rage To Survive", singer Etta James claimed that she viewed Cooke's body in the funeral home and that the injuries she observed were well beyond what could be explained by the official account of Franklin alone having fought with Cooke. James described Cooke as having been so badly beaten that his head was nearly decapitated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed and his nose was mangled.Another legend with a tragic ending. [CH]http://mog.com/Sturgell/blog_post/128487