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Lmao I don’t know her. And she’s not ugly. Rory and Parks give the podcast some sense.
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im confusedLmao I don’t know her. And she’s not ugly. Rory and Parks give the podcast some sense.
Lmao I don’t know her. And she’s not ugly. Rory and Parks give the podcast some sense.
pod aint the same
joe do be seeming to tip toe around stuff
more than he used to
The two white guys huh
This << Purposing at a brunch around friends/co workers/etc
Just curious. Why the hate bro?
Fam. Look at who you’re even addressing this question to.
It’s like asking water why it’s wet. Baller just a hatin’ *** n**** by nature. I imagine his real life persona is akin to the Chapelle show skit where Rick James was hating on Charlie Murphy’s couch but instead of platform women’s shoes he’s wearing some dirty timbs.
What’s the name of it???Joe needs to watch the Sam Cooke doc on Netflix.
The record industry isn't set up for the artist to win.
He was setting up his own publishing, management and record label in the 50's. Then he was cheated by his "manager/employee". Then he was killed.
Joe needs to watch the Sam Cooke doc on Netflix.
The record industry isn't set up for the artist to win.
He was setting up his own publishing, management and record label in the 50's. Then he was cheated by his "manager/employee". Then he was killed.
50 Years Later; Sam Cooke’s Set Up Murder Still Ignored by LAPD, FBI, Mass Media
By B.G. Rhule
On the night of December, 10, 1964, singer Sam Cooke, the man who invented Soul Music when he crossed over to pop music from a successful gospel career as lead singer for the wildly popular Soul Stirrers, commencing with the million-seller “You Send Me,’ spent the better part of his evening at Martoni’s restaurant in Hollywood, first meeting with sound engineer Al Schmidt and his wife for dinner, and closing with an impromptu two-hour recording discussion with another sound engineer, Stan Ross, co-owner of Gold Star Studios, a veritable hit factory responsible for over 500 charted pop songs, from the Champs’ Tequila to Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds..
Ross entered the restaurant at 10:30 pm, “hungry for a quick bite to eat,” having finished engineering a recording session at nearby Wally Heider Studios. As he navigated the bar area toward a rather empty restaurant, he was stunned to see Sam Cooke “sitting alone at the bar, looking all forlorn.”
To provide some context for Ross’ reaction, one must reconcile the cogent fact that Sam Cooke, by 1964 was a wildly popular singer, on the up escalator of success in music and on television. He had recently screen tested in New York City for possible film roles. He had amassed over 16 top ten hits, including “Wonderful World,” “Only 16,” “Twisting the Night Away,” “Another Saturday Night,” “Cupid,” and his then-current hit “Bring It On Home to Me,” with Lou Rawls singing the bass parts. He had wowed Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show with “Basin Street Blues,” and after singing the same on the Mike Douglas Show, was regaled by Howard Keel and other guests, with Douglas interviewing Sam as a show business counterpart—something not often done for the greater plethora of black entertainers in 1964.
Sam was also the first black music producer to have a top ten hit when his protégé Mel Carter scored big with “When a Boy Falls in Love,” written by Sam. He also discovered and produced Bobby Womack and his brothers, The Valentinos, Billy Preston, whom he spotted as a 16 year-old rocking a local club, The Sims Twins, and Johnny Morisette.
He was the first black performer to wear his hair natural, eschewing the popular pomaded pompadour of the time, proclaiming that “I am proud of my blackness.” He was among the first entertainers to refuse to perform to a segregated audience, along with Jackie Wilson and Jesse Belvin, the latter of whom didn’t live to tell about it, the Ku Klux Klan having shot out the tires of his car which later crashed on a highway outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, killing Belvin and his wife Jo Ann, orphaning their two small boys.
The death of Belvin, the arrest of his friend blind singer Al Hibler for not getting off the sidewalk when asked to, being jailed when the horn of his Maserati didn’t cease blaring in Shreveport, La., his friend Fats Domino cooking for fellow black entertainers because they couldn’t eat in southern restaurants with whites on the same tour buses, all conflated to bring Cooke to the forefront of the civil rights struggle.
Like all he did, Sam accomplished his payback with class and dignity—augmented by his hot buttered soulful voice that enraptured all who heard him sing. It was not even known then that Cooke had quietly recorded “A Change is Gonna Come,” intended solely for Dr. Martin Luther King’s SCLC, never for commercial profit. Cook’s road tour had precluded his appearance at The March on Washington, and this was his contribution. He had intended to put the song on an album along with others, entitled The Stars Salute Dr. King. After Sam’s death, Harry Belafonte put out a tribute to King under the same title, but Sam’s manager Allen Klein did not release “A Change is Gonna Come,” electing instead to release it as a commercial single.
Thus, when Ross extrapolated that it was unusual to see a singer of Sam’s stature alone, and that Sam had a sad and lonely countenance , it prompted him to sit beside him, reminding Sam that he, Ross, had done the mixing for Sam’s Shindig performance a few months back at Gold Star, which was the house studio for all of Shindig’s musical performances. Sam sang a rousing rendition of Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind,” and joined the Everly Brothers on “Lucille.” Sam bought Ross a drink and they would proceed to talk music for two hours, until Ross’ departure at 12:30 am.
The reason for Sam’s transparent initial sadness could be traced to turmoil that was two-fold, according to many of those close to Sam including his brother David, and nephew Eugene, whose mother Agnes was Sam’s younger sister and his most ardent supporter. Agnes, the family maintains, knew all of Sam’s personal life machinations. Besides family, and a 13 –year more-on-than-off relationship with a woman named Dot, who was Agnes’ BFF, Sam’s inner circle included his labels (SARS & Derby, part of his KAGS Publishing Co.), manager Zelda Sands, arranger/percussionist Rene Hall, childhood best friend Lou Rawls, Specialty records colleague and close friend Lloyd Price, Road Manager S. R. Crain, and former manager Jess Rand. He was also close friends with Mohammad Ali and Malcolm X, sharing their vision of black entrepreneurialism and self determination. Sam had plans for his brothers and sisters, even the moms of several of his kids, to have their own businesses.
Sam and his wife Barbara were barely on speaking terms by late 1964, the marriage having been rocky for many months. Barbara was seeing Bobby Womack, 14 years her junior, and Sam had rekindled his romance with Dot, and had proposed to her in November, while telling his family that he would divorce Barbara after the holidays. There had been acrimony and grief-stricken tragedy when Sam’s 18 month-old son Vincent drowned in the family’s Los Feliz swimming pool under Barbara’s watch in June, 1963. The older daughter had fallen in months earlier, only to be pulled out by Zelda Sands.
Sam was also increasingly unhappy with what he saw and heard about his nefarious manager Klein. Sam had discovered upon a random visit to his offices several days before his death, that Klein, had assigned J.W. Alexander, Sam’s longtime gospel colleague (The Pilgrim Travelers, with Lou Rawls), and labels partner since 1958, the dirty, back-handed task of fraudulently registering Sam’s titles and copyrights in a Reno courthouse, omitting Sam’s father from the executive board, lowering Sam’s status, and giving Alexander and Klein a large chunk of proprietorship. There were also the other aggravating behaviors; Klein put out a single of a throw-away goofing-around song Sam had no intention or releasing, “Cousin of Mine,” and then snapped a picture of presenting Sam with the keys to a Rolls—which Sam thought of as a cheap stunt, nor was he fond of having such a dinosaur as he favored sports cars like his Ferrari or the Masserati he had won from singer Eddie Fisher in a gambling bet. He would also discover at this time that Sam had paid for not only the Rolls, but the Times Square billboard and all advertising for his Copa show out of his labels’ monies, through Klein’s forgeries, which he deemed to be larceny and personal theft.
Klein, who entered the then-mob owned music business as an accountant mentored by Roulette Records owner and notorious gangster Morris Levy had been hired by Cooke months previously, chiefly to garner a premium booking into the Copacabana and other entertainment venues, including Las Vegas, that were difficult for black artists to gain access. Sam’s plan, according to family and close business sources was to get to that next level, and then split his time producing other young, black artists, opening a series of studios he would christen the “Soul Asylums.” Yes, this was the same Allen Klein who was sued over 100 times by nearly every British group he represented following Sam’s death, including The Rolling Stones, (who after 17 suits, still were forced to concede three songs, including Satisfaction), The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, and others. It was Klein whom Paul McCartney so feared that he sued Apple records/The Beatles, under advisement from his attorney father-in-law Lee Eastman, in order to escape being creatively owned by Klein.
“Get as far away from him as you can!” Eastman urged his son-in-law with an intensified sense of alarm. Question Mark and the Mysterians, a group of poor Chicano rock ‘n roll-loving farm workers who inherited Klein’s” ownership” when Cameo Parkway diluted their stock and Klein bought them out, never saw a dime from their 1966 platinum-seller “96 Tears,” and, like Herman’s Hermits, the Animals, and other groups, were informed by Klein, “I don’t owe you a ****ing thing.”
Levy, whom Tommy James of The Shondells observed as possessing an umbrella stand of baseball bats in his office which were routinely employed “in enforcement” by his associates, was largely rumored to be behind the assassinations of Cornell Gunther of The Coasters as well as Shep Sheppard of the Limelighters, (“Daddy’s Home”), both of whom were taking Levy to court for back royalties and each later having been found dead in their cars, both of which were parked alongside the Long Island expressway. Levy died suspiciously two weeks after a grand jury was convening to indict him on a variety of fraud and extortion charges, while Klein would ultimately serve a year for tax evasion in the 1980s. J.W. Alexander, meanwhile, was caught skimming promoter’s payments when he managed Little Richard, according to band members, and while employed as a manager for singer Larry Williams, (“Boney Maroni, “Short Fat Fanny,” “Slow Down”), was eyed with contemptuous suspicion following Williams’ death in the 80s, when the singer was discovered in his home with a gunshot to the back of his head, quizzically ruled a suicide by LAPD.
12:30 a.m. December 11, 1964. Stan Ross tells Sam he needs to go home as his wife Vera will start worrying about him soon. Sam shakes his hand and thanks him for the conversation, They had made arrangements to work at Gold Star on a blues album Sam had been assembling, and also had ideas about bringing back the Soul Stirrers with him into the studio. He was talking about independence as a producer and singer.
“He was so excited about the future,” Stan lamented, “The forlornness dissipated as soon as we got to talking music. He was so upbeat, so full of life…Hours later when I heard the news I couldn’t believe it. I had just been with him. How could this have happened?”
What did happen has been a subject of decades-long debate, but much of it not fully researched. This author has spent over seven years gathering evidence, interviewing nearly all those in Sam’s inner circle who are still alive, pouring over the autopsy and coroner’s inquest with an attorney. According to Johnny Morisette Jr. and Zelda Sands, Johnny was at P.J.’s when a gun was put to his head by one of Klein’s associates and he was ordered to get Sam to P.J.’s, a night club owned by such mob stalwarts as Mickey Cohen and Eddie Nash, and run by Genovese associates in between—the same family that gave Levy and Klein their greater marching orders. Nightclubs were predominantly owned by the mob, having started with jukeboxes and branched out, in an attempt to not pay ASCAP/BMI fees, later deciding to just steal artist and label profits alike, and launder money all the way to Las Vegas, their Disneyland. No one got on the rides without their accompaniment, least of all some upstart black pop singer who fancied himself a music producer, was hanging out with Black Muslims, and making them feel insignificant and underappreciated. Not in 1964, anyway.
There is no way to know for certain exactly what happened at PJ’s, but what is known is that according to Walter Ward of the Olympics, a long time friend of Sam’s, who sidelined as something of a pimp, a Eurasian girl asked Sam for a ride home, and Ward was agitated that Sam refused to listen to his warnings that she was “dangerous. She works for LAPD! Don’t take her fine *** anywhere, man!” Walter, according to his family, was no saint, but “he knew his ****.”
Angelo Speze, who performed locally in LA as Johnny Angel, and his brother were songwriters whom Sam had befriended months previously. They had been to Sam’s house and even walked with him as he took his daughter to school. Sam liked their tune “A Day Late and a Dollar Short,” wanting to rework some of it into what he was sure would be a hit. Moreover, he liked their youthful zeal, which reminded him of his early days writing tunes for the soul Stirrers. The Spezes were from a long-reaching Italian family in LA that unwittingly knew both religious and underworld figures. When Sam died, and the LAPD sold the media a story that made no sense to them, (or to many who had any modicum of intelligence), they smelled a rat. They knew the gumbas that worked for Klein. They met with them to ultimately weave in the question of oh-by-the-way-what-happened-to-Sam Cooke? They in turn told the story to Johnny’s close pal Leo Eiffert Jr., who has worked CMA security for decades, grew up next door to Fats Domino, in New Orleans, where he had been a messenger boy for Mafioso Carlos Marcello at 14, played alongside Charley Pride, Willie Nelson, Toby Keith, and scores of artists over a 50 year span.
Sam drove the girl to her room at The Hacienda Hotel in an area known as Hustlerville by cops and crooks alike. She would give her address as a hotel on Wilshire Bd. Both addresses were notorious prostitution venues, the former allegedly run by LAPD, and advertised rooms at $3 a night. The police report claims that Sam kidnapped the girl and when she took off with his clothes, he ran outside like a madman wearing only a suit jacket, beat down the motel office door, and grabbed the 59 year-old female manager demanding the whereabouts of the girl before they struggled and she ultimately shot him with a gun that had been atop a mantle. To know that Sam was only 5’9” and 150 pounds, that he was so likeable and beloved by every single person interviewed, that women generally chased him way more than the other way around, (church women included), that no man in his right mind, and many who aren’t, would ever really run out in public covering only his top and not his bottom; that he had three sisters, five daughters, three ex-girlfriends who had his children, had a wife and many nieces who would later be adamant that he put women on a pedestal, was respectful, never was violent at any time, never raised a hand or even his voice to them, makes both the kidnapping and the tussle improbable.
That the manager claimed she beat Sam after she shot him and he kept coming at her is physically impossible given his injuries as depicted at autopsy. Sam was shot with a .22 at close range under the armpit, the bullet piercing his heart and tearing through both lungs. Clark Kent would have had a tough time getting up and fighting after such a hit. Further, pathologists who have studied the report state emphatically that blood cannot travel from a mortal wound to a new bruise as it is pouring out of the victim. What is glaring in the autopsy is the fact that Sam Cooke’s broken fingers, knotted head, facial bruises, and broken knee caps received no mention whatsoever. In essence, the evidence was embroidered as was witness testimony to neatly fit the legal description of justifiable homicide.
Speze tearfully told Eiffert, “He was black, she wasn’t, it was 1964…” Sam Cooke was not afforded even the possibility of victimhood, albeit innocence.
Speze was told by the security detail for Klein that they did not do the killing but that several off-duty officers who moonlighted as security, (very commonplace for officers back then), had been assigned the task of beating sense into Cooke who was planning to dump his management and, according to Sands, hold a presser outing him that Monday in New York. Lloyd Price knew that Sam had stashed over 15k at Grand Central for the purposes of hiring Brook Benton’s orchestra as well as some “legal machinations.” Hall had stated before he died that Sam was planning to work with Rand again, fire Klein, and divorce his wife. A Change was Gonna Come in a big way for him, just not the way Sam planned. Nor had they planned on Sam escaping back to his Ferrari, whereupon they drove up in Klein’s limo, (Hal Blaine, prolific drummer on Another Saturday Night and 6,000 other hits, testified that when one worked with Klein that limo took you everywhere even across the street), grabbed him while whacking at his head and knees, threw him into the limo and executed him under the arm pit. The .22 is the mobster’s gun of choice; the gun registered to motel manager Bertha Franklin was a .45 As for the hooker, whose name was not Elisa Boyer as reported, but Crystal Chi Young, a prostitute who was later arrested for both that and allegedly attempted murder of a then boyfriend, she was instructed to take Sam’s clothes and hide them three doors down, under the steps of a nearby hotel. They were never used as evidence at the coroner’s inquest. You think the Ferguson and New York Grand juries were set ups? The assistant fire captain Harry Woods who was called to the scene later told his nephew, “No way did that woman do that damage to Sam Cooke. He had a definite going over.” There was no chalk drawing, no evidence collection, no investigation. That Sam Cooke was found with a suit jacket and one shoe on was a longtime symbolic warning by mafiosos to police: DO NOT INVESTIGATE.
Within weeks of Sam’s passing Allen Klein owned Sam Cooke’s catalog. Interestingly, the probate papers show that Sam’s family and friends were routinely left off the payroll, including singer Ed Townsend, (“For Your Love”), and Sam’s brother Charles, who with his wife Phyllis, drove Sam on tours, and co-wrote Chain Gang, which appears on the 45 single. Sam’s five children with other women were given lump sum payments and the mothers told to relinquish any claims to Sam’s estate. The 34 year-old Barbara married 20 year-old Bobby Womack, and the nightmare for Sam’s relatives were just beginning. They received anonymous threats via phone to stop snooping around looking for the titles, and that “we know where your children go to school.”
Sam’s protégés were devastated by his death, drug abuse swallowing Billy Preston and Johnny Morisette for years, an inability to perform affecting several of the Soul Stirrers, and a massive hurt that disguised itself as anger devouring his friend Lou Rawls, who turned to domestic violence against his family. Sam’s broken hearted mother died a year later. The worst blow for them came from the media that seemed comfortable with the official police reports, never questioning anything, blindly accepting the pigeon-holing of Sam Cooke as attempted rapist, kidnapper, flasher, and domestic abuser of an older woman. Much of his music was shelved for years. It wasn’t until A Change is Gonna Come became an anthem for President Obama’s election as the first black President of the United States, and Sam’s music was being covered by pop, jazz, blues and rock artists alike that he became too big a chunk of American musical history, too iconic a figure in the interrelationship between civil rights and soul music.
“Justice denied anywhere is justice denied everywhere,” said Dr. King. As we shake our collective fists and heads at the murders of black men in America from Florida with Trayvon Martin to Eric Garner in New York, to Michael Brown in Missouri, and so many other equivalent injustices, one cannot forget the many unsolved murders that came before. The child shot by police while playing with a toy gun, or the man holding the same in a store meeting with an equal fate, deserve our protesting voice. So too do those entertainers like Sam Cooke, for whom the lament
“He was black, she wasn’t, it was 1964…” just doesn’t cut it anymore. 50 years is both too long and long enough. Carlisle said “A lie cannot live forever.” Given that the truths of the Sam Cooke murder are self-evident in many realms due to the advent of the internet, as well as the scientific, forensic advances in DNA, it is time for the Justice department to open cases such as Sam Cooke’s that never had a chance to see the light of day in 1964. He was black, she was white, so what; it’s now 2014.
B.G. Rhule is author of One More River to Cross: The Redemption of Sam Cooke,” and has written a screenplay based upon it, as well as co-writing “Love is A Hurtin’ Thing” (The Lou Rawls Story), with Lou Rawls Jr., Sam Cooke’s godson. Rawls Jr. is executive producer of both biopics currently in development.
You didn’t listen for two years, yet you can form an opinion on the show’s consistency...