Sam Cooke would only be 63 this year, if he hadn't been killed in 1964.

If only he'd lived, who knows, he might even have been able to play an entire song all the way through by now.

I too liked the Wolff bio of Cooke. Lots of information and well-written stylistically. It will be interesting to see what Guralnick can add.

I just heard "Lonely Island" for the first time. So so good.

Sam Cooke American Masters special on PBS stations tonight--9 pm Eastern on some stations, 10 on others, down't know about elsewhere.

Some good photos, film and interviews. Not amazing, it was only an hour, but worth watching.

I think the show might be old. Not sure where or if its showing elsewhere. The Md. PBS station also ran a Marvin Gaye American Masters but alas Comcast in Va took that station off of my basic cable service.

Haven’t been listening to Sam Cooke in years really, but “Sad Mood” was playing in my dreams last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6iZmcgpHGU

Such beautiful phrasing.

This live recording is a revelation, never heard Cooke sound so raw. Just tearing it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiI-4RQGnWE

Sam Cooke's story on Netflix's REMASTERED blew me away. I've long loved his music, but had no idea about his politics and close relationships with Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. pic.twitter.com/95ENd2CmPF

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) September 3, 2019

Otis Redding would be only 62 had he lived. That makes me sad, too. Look at all the great music we've lost.

cause in comparison, all the talented artists from the 60/70s who didn't die kept turning out great music as they aged...

Just came across Robert Palmer's 1985 review of the Harlem Square Club live album. He interviews Gregg Geller about it - it's pretty banal why it was "lost" - but more impressively, Palmer recounts his own experience seeing Cooke in concert. I'm used to reading about these figures as if they're in the distant, DISTANT past, so it's kind of stunning whenever I come across a critic (albeit one who himself is now dead) who has actually encountered them in the flesh:

"I don't think I'll ever forget seeing him perform in Little Rock, Ark., a few months before the shooting. He put on an eloquent, teasing performance, singing like an angel and driving the women who were crowded around the stage into a frenzy. Near the end of the show, he peeled off one of his elegant little gloves (Michael Jackson and Prince did not start this glove business in pop music) and tossed it into the audience. It landed at the ringside table where I was sitting. A phalanx of ululating women came charging forward to claim the glove and pounced, sending table, chairs and listeners, including me, crashing to the floor under a pile of bodies. That was the sort of magnetism Sam Cooke exuded."

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/15/news/pop-life.html