Don’t Know Much About History, Part 2

Summary

Hit Parade | Don’t Know Much About History, Part 2

Podcast: Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Host: Chris Molanphy (Slate Podcasts)
Date: April 2, 2021

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Chris Molanphy resumes his deep dive into the career and legacy of soul legend Sam Cooke, focusing on Cooke’s impact on pop and R&B charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Through storytelling and chart analysis, Molanphy fact-checks the 2020 film One Night in Miami and explores how Cooke’s artistry, business acumen, and social conscience shaped the course of American music—leading up to his enduring masterpiece, “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The episode weaves together historical context, notable collaborations, covers, and the ongoing cultural resonance of Cooke’s work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sam Cooke’s Chart Evolution and Social Conscience

• Cooke’s transition to secular music: Cooke moved from gospel stardom to pop and soul, finding a wider audience by blending genres.
• First wave of classic hits: Songs like “Wonderful World,” “Chain Gang,” and “Cupid” marry catchy melodies with significant lyrical content.
  • “Chain Gang” (01:41): Business savvy and social commentary wrapped in an infectious pop song, inspired by the sight of a real chain gang.
    • “Chain Gang was a jaunty, joyous tune disguising a truly despairing topic—prison labor and, by implication, the mass incarceration of African Americans.” (01:47, Chris Molanphy)
• Artistic innovation: Cooke’s songwriting melded pop, Latin, R&B, and jazz. “Cupid” reached No. 17 on the pop charts—a crossover success. (03:39)

2. Black Entrepreneurship & SAR Records

• Formation of SAR Records (05:02): Cooke, J.W. Alexander, and Roy Crane built SAR as a haven for Black artists—preceding Motown’s success.
  • Cooke’s argument, dramatized in One Night in Miami:

    "Hell I’m not. I got the masters to my songs. I started a label. I’m producing tons of black artists..." (06:09, “Sam Cooke” in the film)

• SAR’s musical innovations: Supported acts like his former group, The Soul Stirrers, with songs like “Stand By Me Father” (06:49), influencing Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me.”
  • Molanphy notes, “King adapted that refrain...turned it into the immortal 1961 smash, Stand By Me.” (08:20)

3. The Charts & Cultural Impact

• Cooke as a pop chart force: Surpassed only by Elvis on RCA Records; renowned for party tracks like “Twistin’ the Night Away” (10:01) and for deeply felt ballads such as “Bring It On Home to Me.”
• Unheralded depth: Pushback against One Night in Miami’s suggestion that Cooke’s work through 1964 lacked substance.
  • “The thing is, Sam’s music was deep.” (12:20, Chris Molanphy)
• Allusions to Civil Rights: Referencing Odetta and folk music, Molanphy explains how Cooke subtly embedded social commentary into love songs. Example: “You know I’ll always be your slave, till I’m buried, buried in my grave…” (14:51, lyric from “Bring It On Home to Me”).

4. 1963: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Artistic Growth

• Diverse hits: “Another Saturday Night,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Little Red Rooster” (15:52–17:12)—demonstrate Cooke’s versatility.
• Harlem Square Club live recording: Captured Cooke’s command of Black club audiences (18:52), later acknowledged as a live classic.
• Personal loss: The tragic drowning of his son Vincent shadows his work and infuses Night Beat with melancholy and emotional depth.
  • “An unmistakable melancholy infused songs like ‘Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,’ ‘I Lost Everything’...” (21:34, Chris Molanphy)

5. Ain’t That Good News and the Rise of "A Change Is Gonna Come"

• Album rooted in tradition: The title track references Black spirituals and was charting as the Beatles arrived in America (22:18–23:15).
• The British Invasion connection: Story of the Valentinos’ “It’s All Over Now,” the Stones’ cover, and the business side of rights and royalties—fact-checked by Molanphy.
  • “That’s our song, man. But I get the final say. I give the Rolling Stones permission...every time some white girl buys a copy of that single, she put money into my pockets. Our pockets.” (24:56, dramatized Sam Cooke)
• Fact vs. fiction: The real chart peaks and timing of the Stones vs. Valentinos versions are corrected (25:54–27:32).

6. The True Story Behind "A Change Is Gonna Come"

• Debunking cinematic myths: Contrary to One Night in Miami, Cooke was inspired and moved to write protest songs by Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”—not shamed into action by Malcolm X.
  • "He was so carried away with the message, writes Cooke biographer Peter Guralnick, and the fact that a white boy had written it, that he was almost ashamed not to have written something like that himself." (32:17, Chris Molanphy)
• Song genesis: After the March on Washington and Mahalia Jackson’s inspiring performance, Cooke writes “A Change Is Gonna Come”—a personal and political anthem (34:09).
• Lasting legacy: Released posthumously as a B-side; became Cooke’s signature protest song and an anthem for civil rights.

7. Sam Cooke’s Death and Enduring Influence

• Cooke’s tragic end (39:55–41:40): Killed in a mysterious incident; his death compared to later tragedies in Black music history (e.g., Tupac, Biggie).
• Posthumous releases and covers:
  • “Shake” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” both became chart hits (41:43).
  • “A Change Is Gonna Come” influences later R&B, soul, and pop artists—evident in the work of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, and the Spinners (43:53–47:03).
  • 2020 DNC: Jennifer Hudson performs “A Change Is Gonna Come,” showing the song’s ongoing relevance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On social conscience in pop music:
  • “Chain Gang was a jaunty, joyous tune disguising a truly despairing topic—prison labor and, by implication, the mass incarceration of African Americans.” (01:47, Chris Molanphy)
• On Black entrepreneurship:
  • “Cook really did see his work at SAR as a form of advocacy.” (06:23, Chris Molanphy)
• On One Night in Miami and historical accuracy:
  • “The thing is, Sam’s music was deep...Malcolm is playing songs by Sam that date back six to seven years...and ignores Cook’s hits during those seven years, like ‘Chain Gang.'” (12:20, Chris Molanphy)
• On Cooke’s inspiration from Dylan:
  • “He was so carried away with the message, writes Cooke biographer Peter Guralnick, and the fact that a white boy had written it, that he was almost ashamed not to have written something like that himself.” (32:17)
• On “A Change Is Gonna Come”:
  • “It was a song both more personal and more political, a song that vividly brought to mind a gospel melody, but that didn’t come from any spiritual number in particular, one that was suggested both by the civil rights movement and by the circumstances of Sam’s own life.” (34:23, Chris Molanphy)
• Cooke’s influence after death:
  • “As great as all of these Sam Cooke compositions are, the song that generations of singers have returned to is ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.’ It is a soul song in every sense of that word, a masterclass in soul singing that demands much of its performer and a laying bare of its writer’s soul at a vital moment in America’s history.” (46:23, Chris Molanphy)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:41 — “Chain Gang” and its social context
• 03:39 — “Cupid” and genre-blending songwriting
• 05:02 — Formation of SAR Records
• 06:09 — One Night in Miami dramatization: Cooke and Malcolm X
• 08:20 — SAR’s influence on “Stand By Me”
• 10:01 — Cooke’s versatility with “Twistin’ the Night Away”
• 12:20 — Fact-checking Cooke’s artistic depth vs. portrayal in film
• 14:51 — Civil rights subtext in “Bring It On Home to Me”
• 15:52 — 1963’s “Another Saturday Night”
• 18:52 — The Harlem Square Club live performance
• 21:34 — Personal tragedy: death of Cooke’s son and its effect
• 22:18 — “Ain’t That Good News” and Black spiritual tradition
• 24:56 — The Valentinos, Rolling Stones, and music publishing
• 27:32 — Fact-check: Stones and Valentinos chart performance
• 32:17 — The real impact of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” on Cooke
• 34:09 — Creation and meaning of “A Change Is Gonna Come”
• 39:55 — Cooke’s final album and tragic death
• 41:43 — Posthumous chart successes: “Shake” and “A Change Is Gonna Come”
• 46:23 — Influence and legacy: later covers, 2020 DNC

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Conclusion

Chris Molanphy’s episode draws a vivid portrait of Sam Cooke not just as a chart-topping pop craftsman but as a pioneering Black artist-businessman whose work reverberated with social consciousness and personal conviction. He critiques historical inaccuracies in popular film while celebrating Cooke’s real-life innovations—and the way his music, especially “A Change Is Gonna Come,” continues to inspire artists and movements for generations. The episode is rich in detail, song snippets, and historical context, making it an essential listen for anyone interested in the intersections of pop music, Black artistry, and American cultural history.

Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Another Saturday night that I got nobody I got some money cause I just.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Got paid welcome back to Hippory, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One series. On our last episode, I talked about how soul legend Sam Cooke began his career as gospel legend Sam Cooke and how he pivoted to secular music. And in the wake of multiple Oscar nominations for the 2020 film One Night in Miami, which reimagines numerous aspects of Cook's career, I began a fact check of the film, which compresses multiple years worth of his accomplishments into early 1964. As Sam Cooke entered the 1960s, he was about to enter a new phase of his artistry. After Wonderful World brought Sam Cooke closer to the top 10 on the pop charts than he had been in years, his new label, rca, knew they had to step up. And they finally did three months later when Cook's next single got all the way to number two on both the RB and the pop charts. But really, it was Cook who stepped up. He had written an ingenious, deceptively deep pop song that's the sound of the.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Men working on the chain gang.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Chain Gang was a jaunty, joyous tune disguising a truly despairing topic prison labor and, by implication, the mass incarceration of African Americans. Cook's friend and fellow touring singer Lou Rawls later said that Cook wrote the song after seeing an actual chain gang toiling in the hot sun by the road as they drove past. Cooke built the beat of the song out of the metallic clank of prisoners shackles and from the Hoo ha, an actual chain gang might chant to pass the time.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Can't you hear them sayin' I'm going home?

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Chain Gang brought a social conscience to Cook's music in 1960, well ahead of the peak of the civil rights movement, and it expressed sorrow and regret even as it made you tap your foot. Like Wonderful World, Chain Gang set a template for Cook in the sixties soulful pop songs with bright, infectious melodies, an alternative to the new Motown sound. Sam had made his name in the late 50s with a mix of sweet, even sappy balladry and what you might call supper club music. Now his lyrical themes would still be mature, at times profound, but the music was spry and youthful, even when he was singing about heartache, as on his 1961 hit Cupid Cupid Draw back your.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Bow and let your Arab go On.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Another single, Sam Cooke penned by himself, Cupid became one of his most acclaimed songs. Allmusics Bill Janovitz would later call it, quote, a perfect pop song that combined Latin, R B, jazz and mainstream pop elements. Rolling Stone ranked it among its 500 greatest songs of all time. It was also a solid crossover hit. Its no. 17 peak on the Hot 100 was actually a little higher than its number 20 peak on the R and B chart. Unusual for Cook to this point, now fully established on rca, Sam Cooke would remain with the label for the rest of his career. But even before he left Keen Records quite Cook was laying the groundwork for a label of his own. In 1959, Sam had heard that his former gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, had been dropped by Specialty Records. Cook offered to write and produce music for them, including their new vocalist Johnny Taylor, and Sam even proposed to release the new recordings like Wade in the Water himself. So Sam and his business and songwriting partner J.W. alexander, the same man who had advised him on the launch of his publishing company, began forming a label just to record the Soul Stirrers. They called it. Saar Records spelled sar, which stood for Sam, Alex and Roy. It was named after Sam Cooke, J.W. alexander and Silas Roy Crane, Cook's former mentor and ongoing advisor from the Soul Stirrers. From the start, before competing label Motown had really scored any hits yet Cook envisioned the Saar label as a haven for black performers. Indeed, in one night in Miami, the fictionalized Cook, played by Leslie Odom Jr. Makes this very argument to the challenge posed by his friend Malcolm X. Sam.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

You have one of the most effective outlets of us all, man. Your voice. You're not using it to help the cause, bro.

[Sam Cooke (speaking voice in dramatization)]

Hell I'm not. I got the masters to my songs. I started a label. I'm producing tons of black artists, don't you think? Think my determining my creative and business destiny is every bit as inspiring to people as you standing up on a podium trying to piss em off.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In real life, Cook really did see his work at Saar as a form of advocacy. He was making his former bandmates in the Soul Stirrers new again. One of their most inventive recordings on Saar was a track Cook and Alexander wrote and arranged for them called Stand By Me Father.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Oh father, you've been my friend now that I'm in trouble Stand by me to the in order.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In truth, the bones of Stand By Me Father were not new. Cook and Alexander were adapting a gospel standard from the turn of the century. Simply titled Stand By Me, it had been written by the legendary minister and gospel composer Charles Albert Tindley. He wrote the song that later became We Shall Overcome by the Way, and it was recorded by dozens of artists. For example, here's a recording of Stand by me from the 40s by gospel singer and proto rock legend Sister Rosetta Tharp.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

When I'm crossing Jordan River Stand by.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Me.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Jesus breast will be my pillow Stand by me.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In Cook's and Alexander's hands, their interpolation Stand By Me, Father changed from a gospel hymn to something closer to a pop ballad with a very memorable refrain, I want you to.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Stand by Stand by.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Does that refrain sound familiar? Ben E. King, formerly of the Drifters, attributes his biggest solo hit ever to both Charles Tindley's venerable gospel hymn and especially the interpolation Sam Cooke came up with for the Soul Stirrers. King adapted that refrain and working with songwriting partners Mike Lieber and Jerry Stoller, turned it into the immortal 1961 smash, Stand By Me.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Just as long as you stand Stand by me so darling, darling Stand by me Hold Stand By Me.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Cook's label would have an even greater impact on the sound of pop after he signed a family band, the Womack brothers, in 1961, led by the soon to be legendary vocalist Bobby Womack. The Womacks renamed themselves the Valentinos and scored a quick hit on SAR with Lookin for a Love, which hit number eight on the R B chart in 1962. While the artists on SAR were benefiting from Sam Cooke's production savvy, Sam's own recording career was hitting its stride. By 1962, he was the second best selling act on RCA Records after Elvis Presley.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Way where the people are so gay Twisting the night away Here they have.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

A lot of fun Cook was flaunting his versatility. On the one hand, he could score with party records like his classic number one R&B number seven pop hit twistin the Night Away, as well as the number 4 R&B number 17 pop hit having A Party.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

We're having a party Dancing to the music.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

And then on the other hand, Sam was also recording ever more deeply felt soul ballads, like his slow dance classic Bring It On Home to me, a number two R&B number 13 pop hit.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Bring It All Home To Me.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

As with Chain Gang two years earlier, Bring It On Home to Me was a polished pop slash R B song that was more profound than it first appeared, which makes another scene in One Night in Miami more than A little unfair here. Kingsley Ben Adir's Malcolm X is making his argument to Sam Cooke by playing Cooke's records and savaging them for their shallowness.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

That is why, Brother Sam, this movement that we are in is called a struggle, because we are fighting for our lives. And what words are we hearing from you, brother? Mr. Soul.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Darling you send me I know.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

You.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

Oh, maybe this one.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Darling I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you oh, sentimental reason.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

Wow, Sam, your music is deep, brother.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

The thing is, Sam's music was deep. Malcolm's implication here is that through 1964, when this scene takes place, Sam Cooke had been recording nothing but pablum, which, as my Slate colleague Jack Hamilton points out in his article on One Night in Miami, is wrong on at least two counts. First, Malcolm is playing songs by Sam that date back six to seven years. Never mind the fact that yout Send Me was a more innovative hit than Malcolm is giving it credit for in this scene. And second, by leaping back from 1964 to 1957, this imaginary Malcolm X harangue ignores Cook's hits during those seven years, like Chain Gang and Bring It On Home to Me and the social conscience that animated them. Sam took inspiration from sources Malcolm would have found quite profound. Odetta, often called the voice of the civil Rights movement And the woman Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Called the Queen of American Folk Music, was an inspiration to numerous folk, gospel, soul, and pop artists in the 50s and 60s. Among those inspired artists was folk luminary Joan Baez, who covered this Odetta arrangement of the post Civil War spiritual o Freedom at Dr. King's March on Washington in 1963. And she also inspired Sam Cooke, who keyed into one specific line in the.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Song and before I'll be slave I'll be buried in my grave O home to my Lord's.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In his summer 1962 hit Bring It On Home to Me, a full year before Baez sang O Freedom at the March, Cook recontextualizes that line in the guise of a love song.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

You know I'll always be your slave, John. Buried, buried in my grave oh.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

This allusion offers ample evidence that Cook was aware of both social justice movements and the folk scene well before 1964 by taking inspiration from Odetta. You might say Cook had a thing or two in common with this Odetta fan, a white boy from Minnesota turned New York folkie. Hold that thought, because we will come back to this young gentleman.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Another Saturday Night that I Ain't got.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Nobody in 1963, Sam Cooke had another watershed year with highs and lows and ever greater diversity in his output. In the spring he scored another top 10 pop number one R B smash with his danceable yet ruminative song Another Saturday Night, a party song about not having anyone to party with.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Saturday night that I ain't got nobody I got some money cause I just.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Got paid Then in a flex. Cook's follow up hit was a spin on the decades old story song Frankie and Johnny, an oddly sprightly murder ballad that had been recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Johnny cash in the 60s. It would become a top 40 hit for both Brooke Benton and Elvis Pres, but the biggest hit version of all.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Was Cook's Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts, at least that's the way the story goes.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Sam's version of Frankie and Johnny reached number 14 pop number 4 r b in the late summer of 63, and then his follow up to that single was from yet another sub genre, a run through the Willie Dixon blues standard Little Red Rooster, Recorded for his lightly conceptual concept album Nightbeat. Sam Cooke's take on Rooster was a strutting soul record with jazzy percussion. In the fall of 63, Cook took Little Red Rooster to no. 11 pop 2R&B, again the highest charting version of that classic tune. Alongside this string of hits, Cook was touring relentlessly, honing his already formidable chops as one of the most dynamic stage presences of his generation. And he was living out his principles by refusing to play separate shows for white and black audiences, even in the Deep South. The highlight of his year in live performance came early in January when Cook performed for a predominantly black crowd in Miami at the Harlem Square Club. It was a gritty performance for an enraptured audience, as in this moment when he turned his favorite Nat King Cole standard from light jazz into a boisterous sing along, jam everybody one more time.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

I'll think of you every morning.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Fans who were not at the venue that night would not hear this Miami recording for more than two decades. It was posthumously issued on LP in 1985. In 1963, the Harlem Square Club show was a reminder that even as he was actively courting a white pop audience, Sam Cooke was still a master in a black room, able to code switch deftly. Now considered Cook's best live recording, Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 frequently ranks on all time greatest album lists like Rolling Stones. Perhaps all of this relentless activity helped Cook move on from the tragedies that befell him. Even during his rise to fame, Sam had lost people in his life. In November 1958, Cook while en route from St. Louis to Greenville, Sam's convertible smashed into an idled truck. Cook, singer Lou Rawls and guitarist Cliff White were all hospitalized, but Cook's driver, Ed Cunningham was killed. Another car crash in 1959 killed Sam's first wife, Dolores, even though she and Sam had already been divorced and he was by then remarried to Barbara. Cook paid for Dolores funeral expenses. But 1963 brought the greatest tragedy of all. In June, at Sam's home in Los Angeles, his 18 month old son Vincent wandered away from his mother and their housekeeper fell into their swimming pool and drowned. Sam was inconsolable, but also incommunicative. Friends like Lou Rawls and J.W. alexander could not get Sam to open up. Cook simply kept touring and recording and his sadness came out in the music. When the moody and bluesy Nightbeat album came out later that summer, an unmistakable melancholy infused songs like Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, I Lost Everything, Mean Old World and Lost and Looking, I'm.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Lost and I'm Looking for My Baby Lord knows My Baby Ain't Around.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Still, however much he repressed his pain, Sam was at the peak of his artistry going into 1964. He began the year recording what would turn out to be his final studio album, Ain't that Good News. Yet again, Cook was finding clever ways to infuse his pop with the history of African American song. The album's title track, which we played you at the top of the show.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Baby's Coming Home Tomorrow. Ain't that News, man, Ain't that News.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Was a kind of down home Southern flavored R B based on a venerable black spiritual that dated to the 19th century. Ain't dat Good News. As I noted earlier, Sam Cooke's Good News was the single he had on the charts the week in February 1964 that he went to Miami to watch his friend Cassius Clay defeat Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion. Good News indeed Said she wants me.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

All to herself Ain't that Good News.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

The song was at number 13 on Billboard's Hot 100 that week, on its way to a number 11 peak. But the song at number one on the chart that week was a different phenomenon entirely.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Oh yeah, tell you something I think you'll understand.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

February 1964 was famously when the Beatles came to America kicking off the British Invasion, Cassius Clay had his own run in with the group that month meeting the Beatles in Miami the week before his Sonny Liston fight and taking a series of now famous staged press photos of the soon to be champ pretending to knock out the Fab Four. Perhaps appropriately then, the British Invasion also comes up. In one night in Miami, Eli Garay's Cassius Clay brings up his recent meeting with the Beatles. And Malcolm X notes scornfully yet again that Sam Cooke is pandering to a pop audience now obsessed with a fad. That's when Leslie Odom's Sam Cooke tells his own British Invasion story.

[Sam Cooke (speaking voice in dramatization)]

I invested in the British Invasion. I have these proteges. Valentinos, the five Womack brothers, the youngest one, Bobby wrote this song. It's All Over Now. The band records it as fantastic. All over the R B charts. It even went to number 94 on Billboard's Hot 100. Then I get a call from England. One of these British bands wants to record a cover version.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Beatles?

[Sam Cooke (speaking voice in dramatization)]

Nah, Cash. They call themselves the Rolling Stones. I like the Muddy Water song. Exactly. So Bobby's like, you know, no damn way, man. That's our song, man. But I get the final say. I give the Rolling Stones permission to record it. And the Rolling Stones version of the song goes all the way to number one. Not on the R and B charts, pop charts. But of course, you know, once this version of the song gets big, Bobby's version just disappears, falls off the R B charts. It's just gone. So, of course Bobby's crushed. Six months later, that first royalty check comes in. My company owns the rights to the song. That means every time some white girl buys a copy of that single, she put money into my pockets. Our pockets. White boys out there touring around, they ain't even know they working for us. Bobby's like, the Rolling Stones wanna cover any more versions of my songs.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

So, okay, Hit Parade is a show about the charts. And we can't let this scene go without a bit of fact checking. The root of the story is true. Bobby Womack, leading his brothers in the Valentinos, did indeed write and record the original. It's all over now. And if you. If there's one chart position Kemp Powers script gets right, it's that the song did Indeed reach number 94 on the Hot 100. What about that other stat that the young Rolling Stones took the song all the way to the number one? Well, they did, but in England, not in America. The Stones cover of Womack's song topped the UK chart in July 1964.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Because I used to love but it's all over now.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In the US The Stones had not yet become chart dominators. And It's All over now only reached number 26 in late September of 64. It would take one more single Time Is On My side to get the stones a top 10American hit. Also, this claim that the Stones it's all over now KO'd Bobby Womack's original from the R and B chart. That's pure fantasy.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Table's turning now.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

It's. In fact the Valentino's version reached its R and B chart peak of number 21 in early September 1964, just two weeks before the Stones version reached its hot 100 peak. Oh, and finally, please note all of these dates. Neither the Valentin Valentino's version nor the Stone's cover of It's All over now was on the charts. Really even existed in February of 64. So, yeah, a lot of imaginary chart stats from Mr. Powers. But honestly, this tall tale of the Valentinos and the Stones is not one night in Miami's most extreme bit of dramatic license. That comes a few minutes later when Malcolm X delivers the crushing blow in his debate with Sam Cooke by playing him one more record by Bob Dylan.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

You know, I was thinking about this song I heard on the radio the other day, Sam, that made me think of you. Turns out it's pretty popular.

[Narrator/Announcer]

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? Guessing how many times Marsta cannon balls fly before they're forever banned the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind the answer is blowing in the wind.

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

I just love those lyrics that really get you thinking, don't it? Did that make you angry?

[Sam Cooke (speaking voice in dramatization)]

Why would it?

[Malcolm X (character in One Night in Miami)]

This is a white boy from Minnesota who has nothing to gain from writing a song that speaks more to the struggles of our people, more to the movement than anything that you have ever penned in your life, brother. Being vocally in the Strokes, bad for business. Why has this song gone higher on the pop charts than anything you got out?

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Let's break down the chart aspects first. Higher on the pop charts, not in 1964. And not that version of Blowin in the Wind. The version of Dylan's masterful composition that became a pop smash was the COVID by folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Their Blowin in the wind reached number two on the Hot 100 in August 1963, the same month as the March on Washington.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Bob Dylan's Blowin in the wind, written in 1962 and released on his 1963 album The Freewheelin, Bob Dylan was issued as a single around the same time as Peter, Paul and Mary's isn't.

[Narrator/Announcer]

How many times must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned? The answer, My friend Is blowing in.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

But Dylan's version didn't chart. He wouldn't score a Hot 100 hit of any kind until Subterranean Homesick Blues in 1965. So, yes, Dylan's song went higher on the charts than anything Sam Cooke released in 1963 or 64, but not Dylan's recording, and not at the moment. Our cinematic Malcolm X is eviscerating Cook's career. But that's not even the greatest departure from fact in this scene. Not only was Cook familiar with Dylan's song, he'd already been inspired by it, and by February of 64, he'd already written and recorded a song based on it.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The answer, My friend Is blowing in.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

The wind the answer Sam Cooke loved Blowin in the Wind, and if there's one true thing in the movie's Malcolm X diatribe, it's that Dylan's song did bother Sam, Quote. He was so carried away with the message, writes Cook biographer Peter Goralnick, and the fact that a white boy had written it, that he was almost ashamed not to have written something like that himself. The fact is, Sam Cooke had been thinking he needed to write his own Blowin in the Wind as far back as the March on Washington. Goralnik writes that Cook was fired up by Mahalia Jackson's presence alongside Dr. King, including the moment she sang How I Got Over. And that same year, Cook and his SAR Records team had even recorded the Soul Stirrers, singing the black spiritual that King referenced in his I have a Dream speech. Free at last. So in December, December 1963, while preparing material for his Ain't that Good News LP, Cook wrote a song to his own guitar accompaniment. He played it for JW Alexander a couple of days after Christmas, saying he didn't even know where it had come from, that maybe it had come to him in a dream. It was monumentally different from anything Sam had done before. Monumental period.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

I was born by the river In a little tent oh, and just like the river I've been running Of a.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Change is gonna come Peter Goralnik writes, quote, it was a song both more personal and more political, a song that vividly brought to mind a gospel melody, but that didn't come from any spiritual number. In particular, one that was suggested both by the civil rights movement and by the circumstances of Sam's own life. Cook was very proud of it. I think my daddy will be proud, he told James J.W. alexander. As Goralnik points out, there is no one antecedent to a change is Gonna Come. It doesn't sound like Odetta doesn't mimic Dylan, even though it is indebted to Dylan's spirit. Its words are deceptively simple, not straining for poetry, but deeply poetic nonetheless. It's been too hard living But I'm afraid to die Or I go to the movie and I go downtown Somebody keep telling me don't hang around Or There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long but now I think I'm able to carry on it was perhaps the most succinct vision in Song of how racism is lived.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Knocking me.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Moreover, Cook's decision to have his arranger Renee hall, orchestrate the song made the finished product sound not at all like a folk song. It sounded more like another hero, Nat King Cole on ornately arranged classics like.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Nature Boy and While We Spoke of Many Things, Fools and Kings. This he said to Me.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

And even though Coke's masterpiece followed Dylan's and the March on Washington, it came early in the lineage of black pride and black power anthems, one of the first civil rights songs to be so self reflective. Cook was signaling the direction these anthems would soon take. He wrote it just weeks before Nina Simone wrote her own deeply personal, fiercely angry and oddly jaunty Mississippi Goddam, a song she debuted at Carnegie hall calling it a show tune. But the show hasn't been written for it yet. Here was the thing about A Change Is Gonna Come. It was recorded in January 1964 and about to be released on the Ain't that Good News album, the night Sam Cooke spent in a hotel room in real life with Cassius Clay, Jim Brown and Malcolm X. It is, as my slate colleague Jack Hamilton points out, a distortion of the record to claim that Cook was only recording apolitical material by 1964 and that he needed to be shaken up by Malcolm X to be inspired to do so.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

I go to the movie and I go downtown Somebody keep telling me do.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

To be fair, Malcolm and company might not have known the song existed because the album was not out yet. Ain't that Good News was released on March 1, and anyway, Cook had placed A Change Is Gonna Come on side B of the album. It wasn't intended as one of the singles. On the other hand, just a Fortnight before the Clay Liston fight, Cook had performed the song on NBC's the Tonight show with Johnny Carson, complete with an orchestra. It was reportedly a Titanic performance, but sadly, no tape of the Tonight show performance exists. So this was the odd netherworld in which a change Is Gonna Come existed. Sam Cook knew it was the best thing he'd ever written, but given its complexity, he performed it once live for the rest of 1964. The Ain't that Good News album spun off further hits like Good Times, get.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

In the Groove and Let the Good Time Roll, I Won't Stay Until I.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Soothe My Soul and Cook's cover of the Tennessee Waltz, I Was Dancing With.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

My Baby to that Sinner She Walks.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

But A Change Is Gonna Come remained an album cut. Sam did manage to achieve one more personal goal that year. In July of 64, more than six years after he, quote, bombed at the Copacabana nightclub, he returned to the Copa and played a rapturously received set that was issued as a live album later that year. It closed a career chapter for Cook, a final triumph. The the at the Copa album was the last Sam Cooke LP issued in his lifetime. On December 11, 1964, in a senseless incident that remains shrouded in mystery to this day, Sam Cook was killed at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles. Bertha Franklin, the motel's manager, claimed that she shot him in self defense when a drunken Cook was moving to attack her. Cook's family and supporters have questioned the incident ever since the case was investigated and closed by the LA authorities. In the popular imagination, Cook's death sits alongside the 1990s murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, among the most disputed deaths of a black musical luminary. And as with those future stars, hundreds of thousands of fans lined the streets to pay their respects to Cook in the days just after his death. Also like those rappers, Cook left behind material that would be released in the immediate wake of his passing. One month after his death, RCA issued a single that spawned two new chart hits. The A side of the single Shake was the title track of what would become Cook's first posthumous album. Shake was an exuberant dance record in the tradition of past Cook hits like Twistin the Night Away, Having a Party and Another Saturday Night. It reached number seven on the Hot 100 in late February 1965. His highest charting poppy top hit since Chain gang reached number two in 1960. And then in early March, the singles B side reached its peak on the chart, number 31, just barely a top 40 hit. What was that? B side. It was A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke's masterpiece was finally a hit just three months after his death. What else could the song be but Sam Cooke's legacy? Though it was only a modest pop hit, Change was a top 10 R&B hit, and it cast a long shadow over the next half decade of black popular music. Its florid orchestrations, paired with gut bucket vocals could be heard in the work of James Brown on his 1966 hit It's a Man's Man's, Man's World.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

This is a man's world this is a man's World.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

And its social conscience reverberated through Brown's say it Loud. I'm black and I'm proud say it.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Loud, say it loud.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Moreover, countless artists covered Cook's legendary song catalog. Otis Redding, another soul legend whose life was tragically cut short and possibly Sam Cooke's only rival for the title of greatest male voice in soul, took on several, including A Change Is Gonna Come, Aretha Franklin, whose career directly mirrored Cooks. She too, was a preacher's child and befriended Sam on the gospel circuit back in the 50s. On her 1967 breakthrough album, I never Loved a man the way I love you, she took on her friend Sam's good times. And a change is gonna come, he.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Said, it's been a long.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Time but.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I know my change is gonna come.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In the 70s, white British performers who were inspired by Cook rose to the challenge of his material. Rod Stewart, who fell in love with Cook's voice as a young man when Sam toured England, has openly emulated Cook's husky soul voice throughout his career and covered many of his classics, from Shake to Twistin the Night Away to Bring it on home to me.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Bring your sweet loving.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

In 1974, British folk pop artist Cat Stevens covered Sam's wistful party song Another Saturday Night and took it to number six on the Hot 100, a few positions higher than Cook's original did in 1963. And in 1980, the great R B vocal troupe the Spinners, scored one of their biggest crossover hits with a cover of Cook's Cupid that reached number four, again higher than Cook's original did in 1980. 1961. As great as all of these Sam Cooke compositions are, the song that generations of singers have returned to is A Change Is Gonna Come. It is a soul song in every sense of that word, a masterclass in soul singing that demands much of its performer and a laying bare of its writer's soul at a vital moment in America's history. Perhaps that explains why millions of Americans heard it at last summer's live streamed Democratic National Convention.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

In the little tents.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

It was performed at the DNC by the virtuosic vocalist and Oscar winning actor Jennifer Hudson, singing from Sam Cooke's hometown of Chicago. Like so so many before her, Hudson found the heart and the grit in the song at another pivotal moment in our country's history. For one night in Chicago and Miami and New York and Los Angeles and Clarksdale, Mississippi and in homes across the nation, Sam Cooke's words provided hope that after a long time coming, a change was gonna come. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanvi. That's me. My producer is Asha Soludja. June Thomas is the Senior Managing Producer and Gabriel Roth the Editorial Director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of [e-mail] podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanthe.

[Sam Cooke (singing voice)]

Able.

[Chris Melanvi (podcast host/narrator)]

Car it.