Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke (122 page)

506
“The fight was a disgrace”: Hauser,
Muhammad Ali,
p. 59.

506
“simultaneously we’re hearing this voice in the middle of the casino”: Hauser has a very similar altercation taking place
before
the fight in
Muhammad Ali,
p. 58.

507
they had a great three days in Vegas: Out on the Coast, Kapralik got Sam together with another Columbia artist, Johnny Mathis, and, he said, the two of them spent much of the evening singing spirituals and discussing the different turns that their careers, which dated back to almost exactly the same moment in time, had taken.

507
Bob Yorke . . . had lost his position of independence: Yorke left the company in the fall and went to Colpix about a year later, replacing Don Kirshner as head of a&r, according to
Variety,
October 16, 1964.

507
Joe D’Imperio was the new man in charge: Almost all of my biographical information on Joe D’Imperio, and my insight into his thinking, apart from my interviews with Allen Klein, who both liked and admired him, comes from Jonny Meadow, a music-industry veteran, who had worked for Atlantic and was working for Hill and Range Songs at the time. Through Hill and Range, Elvis Presley’s publisher, Meadow was in regular contact with D’Imperio, who became something of a role model and mentor to him and whose words and biography he is able to recapitulate in detail. Wherever Meadow’s stories could be cross-checked against other accounts, they were always borne out. It wasn’t quite like interviewing Joe D’Imperio, but it was close!

508
the formal mechanism by which Allen would be involved with the company: Clearly an understanding was worked out by mid-July, because the bill for the Valentinos’ July 19 session at Bell Sound in New York was directed to A. Klein and Co.

509
“These are not the days for anonymous and quiet approval”: Bob Hunter, “Handsome Crooner Takes Strong Stand,”
Chicago Defender,
July 20-26, 1963. A. S. “Doc” Young, “Mathis to Raise $60,000,”
Los Angeles Sentinel,
June 13, 1963, details how “one by one and two by two, Negro entertainers—the highest-paid group within the race—are joining the civil rights battle lines.”

510
civic authorities suddenly discovered that the auditorium urgently needed painting:
Amsterdam News,
August 3, 1963; Brian Ward,
Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations,
p. 298.

510
“[Sam’s] Los Feliz area manse buzzed”: Paul McGee, “Theatricals,”
Los Angeles Sentinel,
August 29, 1963. See also Gertrude Gipson, “Candid Comments,” in the same issue.

510
The March took place four days later: Much of the detail on the March is taken from Thomas Gentile,
March On Washington: August 28, 1963,
as well as Taylor Branch,
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63,
David L. Lewis,
King: A Biography,
et al.

511
“I’ve Been ’Buked and I’ve Been Scorned”: Mahalia Jackson gives her own eloquent reasons for picking this song in her autobiography, written with Evan McLeod Wylie,
Movin’ On Up,
pp. 197ff.

511
“The button-down men in front”: Gentile,
March On Washington,
p. 219, quoting Lerone Bennett in
Wade in the Water.

511
a speech that . . . “carried every ear and every heart”: Gentile,
March on Washington,
p. 241, provides this quote from William Martin Miller,
Martin Luther King Jr.,
pp. 166-167. David L. Lewis identifies Miller as a pacifist colleague of Bayard Rustin in
King: A Biography,
p. 72.

512
“Tell them about the dream”: Taylor Branch,
Parting the Waters,
p. 882, cites as his principal source for Mahalia’s exhortation a 1983 interview with New York labor leader and march organizer Cleveland Robinson. King himself in a November 1963 interview spoke of how he “took up the first run of oratory,” Branch wrote, “that ‘came to me.’” Others have suggested the “dream” was part of the prepared text.

512
“rhetoric almost without content”: Lewis,
King: A Biography,
pp. 226-227.

512
It is impossible to calculate the full effect: The effect of the March, and the Movement, on Sam comes largely from interviews with J.W. Alexander, and, of course, from his frequent expressions of his views on race to Bobby Womack and others.

513
“I still feel that there is something more”: CORE papers, 1941-1967, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Hamilton’s sign-off to the letter was, “You’ll never walk alone.”

514
Allen and Alex were in the lobby afterward: The specific chronology of this adventure remains somewhat indeterminate. When, or whether, lunch actually took place is the crux of the disparity. I have tried to meld Allen Klein’s, J.W. Alexander’s, and Joe D’Imperio’s (via Jonny Meadows) differing versions in the most plausible fashion, with J.W. supplying the shoeshine. Everyone agreed on the fundamental facts, though, as well as the execution and result of Allen’s strategy.

516
a very belated reckoning: Again, without belaboring the point, Jess Rand’s perspective and Sam and Alex’s were altogether different.

516
a big rock ’n’ roll show at the Sports Arena: Lee Cotten,
Twist & Shout: The Golden Age of American Rock ’n Roll,
vol. 3, 1960-1963, p. 514.

516
the new Buick Riviera he had gotten as a gift: Gertrude Gipson, “Candid Comments,”
Los Angeles Sentinel,
June 20, 1963.

516
J.W. announced to the press:
Los Angeles Sentinel,
August 15, 1963.

518
“totally contrary to everything going on in the record business”: Will Friedwald,
Sinatra! The Song Is You,
p. 367.

518
a partnership between Harry Belafonte and Nat “King” Cole: Daniel Mark Epstein,
Nat King Cole,
pp. 303-304, cites a February 4, 1960,
down beat
article and one in
Jet,
March 10, 1960, concerning the formation of a company that was probably dissolved by April.

520
“I thought Allen was not up to it”: Other voices of opposition were Florence Greenberg, who had her own interest in Sam, Zelda Sands, of course, and Paul Cantor, who went to work for Greenberg in early 1963.

521
the Sweet Chariot, a brand-new gospel nightclub: Sam Chase, “Club’s Smash Opening in New York Sparks Hope of Big Gospel Trend,”
Billboard,
May 18, 1963.

521
“What murdered these four girls?” Branch,
Parting the Waters,
p. 891.

522
“He knows consciously what he’s going to do”: Don Paulsen, “An Exclusive Interview with Sam Cooke,”
Rhythm & Blues,
February 1965.

523
A teenage white girl who saw the show: This was Flo Murdock, who went on to become a club booking agent.

523
five hundred black churchgoers were attacked: “Break Up Memorial March,”
Louisiana Weekly,
September 28, 1963.

523
“dragged out of [his] church, clubbed to the ground”:
Louisiana Weekly,
October 12, 1963.

523
“We congratulate the mixed crowd”: Elgin Hychew, “dig me! . . ,”
Louisiana Weekly,
September 21, 1963.

524
a four-page document which stipulated: This was dated September 26, and presented in the form of a letter to Tracy [
sic
] Limited c/o Allen Klein from the Radio Corporation of America (RCA Record Division). It was signed by Norman Racusin, Division Vice President and Operations Manager, for RCA, J.W. Alexander for Tracy, Kags, and Malloy, and Sam Cooke individually.

524
a song they had written together, “Memory Lane”: This had been the B-side of Lou Rawls’ first single for his new label, Capitol, the previous year.

525
30 percent of the 6 percent royalty: Just to give an idea of the actual amount of money involved, a single that sold one hundred thousand copies would generate a figure of roughly $100,000 (this is based on a $.98 retail price), on which Tracey’s 6 percent (but not Sam’s 5 percent) royalty would be calculated. Of the $6,000 total of royalties due, Sam would receive roughly $4,230, Tracey $1,770.

526
it was Sam who refused to back down: Interviews with Charles and Barbara Cooke. Also
New York Times
(UPI), October 9, 1963: “The police said the rock ’n’ roll band leader, his wife and associates repeatedly blew the horn of their car, yelled and woke guests. . . . The police said remarks were exchanged between Mr. Cooke and the hotel manager.” The October 12
Shreveport Sun,
the black weekly, also had an extensive account.

526
$9,989.72 in coins and wrinkled bills:
Shreveport Journal,
October 8, 1963.

527
a bomb threat was called in:
Shreveport Times,
October 9, 1963.

527
a kind of myth grew up: In addition to the well-known, if apocryphal, story that Solomon Burke told in Gerri Hirshey’s
Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music
about Sam, Solomon, and the entire troupe being forced to disrobe and sing, Gladys Knight had Jackie Wilson humiliated in exactly the same manner by “some cops in Louisiana” in her autobiography,
Between Each Line of Pain and Glory.

527
enough money in his briefcase “to buy the damn motel”: This was B.B. King recalling the incident, but conceding that he wasn’t there.

530
Zelda caught the first plane back to L.A.: Again, perhaps needless to say, Barbara’s perspective on this incident is different from Zelda’s, though it does include the gun, the firing, and her presumption of Zelda’s interest in Sam.

530
“‘Zelda’—Sam Cooke’s gal Friday”:
Cash Box,
November 16, 1963.

530
Crain, too, found himself unexpectedly on the outside: Sam was still speaking of Crain as part of SAR while on the English tour (Chris Hutchins, “Little Richard Is Amazing!”
New Musical Express,
October 12, 1962). Even at that point, though, change was clearly in the air, because it was on the English tour that Sam and J.W. first broached the idea of Kags Music Corp. backing Crain in his own agency.

531
“Several women in the audience became hysterical”: Jesse H. Walker, “Theatricals,”
Amsterdam News,
November 30, 1963.

531
“I had to consult Sam. He was working on a percentage”: Glenn Douglass for ANPI, “‘Was Just Beginning to Live,’ Friends Say,”
The Carolinian,
December 19, 1964. The percentage appears to have been on something like a fifty-fifty basis. Universal agent Dick Alen speculates that there was very likely a break point at which Sam’s percentage increased to 60 percent, but in any case, if the theater were to do $30,000 at the box office over the course of the week, Sam stood to personally clear as much as $10,000 after paying all the talent on the show. Which stands in sharp contrast to the $3,000 King Curtis received the week before or Sam would most likely have agreed to just two years earlier.

531
“Negroes will mourn doubly the loss”:
Los Angeles Sentinel,
November 28, 1963.

531
impromptu remarks to reporters: According to Karl Evanzz,
The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad,
pp. 272-273, Malcolm was substituting for Elijah Muhammad, who saw his lieutenant’s off-the-cuff response, however true it may have been to Elijah’s own private opinion, as a public relations disaster and “a blatant act of defiance.”

531
almost like a big brother: Hauser,
Muhammad Ali,
pp. 97-98.

531
a “likeable, friendly, clean-cut, down-to-earth youngster”: Malcolm X with Alex Haley,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
p. 303.

532
“He saw greatness”: Hauser,
Muhammad Ali,
p. 98. Malcolm even placed road manager Osman Karriem (Archie Robinson) with Clay. Alex Haley, coauthor of
The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
speaks in Hauser,
Muhammad Ali,
pp. 109-110, of “the adoration between Malcolm and Muhammad Ali.”

532
it was on this trip, too: Here, once again, there’s no reconciling of dates. Lithofayne Pridgon vividly recalled introducing Jimi Hendrix to Sam at the Apollo in 1963. Sam played the Apollo twice that year, and by Lithofayne’s figuring, and mine, June was too early. This all made sense until I read Robert W. Fisher,
My Jimi Hendrix Experience,
a memoir in which Fisher, the leader of the Bonnevilles, out of Parsons, Tennessee, recalls a monthlong tour with Hendrix that ended December 22. Hendrix’s arrival in New York in January 1964 is well documented and was clearly not his first time in the city. I suppose it’s possible that he joined the Bonnevilles’ tour a little late—but this is baseless speculation. And I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it at that.