Tribute To The Lady / Interprets Billie Holiday

Interprets Billie Holiday on Starcall / RCA 1030. Songs are the same, order is different

Backside text of the Starcall / RCA Album from 1976. Interestingly enough they claim these songs had never been released before, this might be true for England where the first Keen album was not released.

A collection of previously unreleased selections

The lines in Ain’t Nobody’s Business about goin’ prayin’ on Sunday on playin’ on Monday surely held special significance for the late Sam Cooke. Having been raised by his father, Reverend Charles Cooke in a strict, Baptist household, the words that Billie Holiday first made famous had to really hit home for him, quite literally.

The Reverend could say “amen!” to son Sam’s success as part of the Soul Stirrers, a gospel group who recorded for Specialty Records. But his 1956 attempts to call himself “Dale Cook” and thus record popular music in spite of his father’s prohibition were short-lived[1]. Sam Cooke’s voice was, at an early stage in his career, quite unmistakable no matter what name it bore.

Sam Cooke’s label shared the Reverend’s lack of enthusiasm for his pop leanings – but for a different reason: Specialty felt it would lead to the break-up of the hottest religious recording act around at the time.

And so little more of the secular side of Sam Cooke was made public until producer Bumps Blackwell signed him a year later to his own Keen Records as a solo performer. From their first hit together – You Send Me- it was clear that Sam Cooke’s original material, appropriately called “Soul,” would shape a massive pop career for the former gospel shouter[2].

Eventually, even Dad gave Sam his blessings. And the singing Cooke became known for a unique style that broadened with his move to RCA Records in 1960. Sam was beginning to hit the world squarely on target with jazz-orientated interpretations of standards as album cuts by 1963m and the 1964 succes of “Sam Cooke at the Copa” – both live and on disc – seemed to indicate that he was moving on to new territory. He had worked with the full complement of strings and horns before, but the earthier aura of his never-ending stream of self-penned hit singles kept much of his interpretive power “in the can.”

His untimely death later in ’64 occurred just five years after the Lady Day story had, as unexpectedly, ended – mid-chapter.

Little has been previously documented about any connection between these two great black voices but with the posthumous release of these ten tracks, it becomes clear that Cooke had paid more than lip service respect to the memory of Billie Holiday during his own all-too-short career.

This then is an album with a rare sort if insight to offer: one clearly defined vocal style is expressed through another as uniquely emotive. Thus, the divergent times and spaces which produced both brands of magic are at once defined and united on newly-discovered.

Sam Cooke was – as another RCA album title proclaimed – “The Man Who Invented Soul,” a holy inspiration never since duplicated. His sanctification of the “Monday” in all of calls for an “amen!” we needn’t be urged to proclaim.

[1] Reverend Cooke was never really against a popular career for his son, MB

[2] in the strict sense of the word, Sam Cooke was never a gospel shouter like June Cheeks for example.

Liner Notes of the Souffle Release

year: unknown (yet) but it was still during his lifetime, maybe even before 1960

Special Acknowledgment: Rex Productions & Keen Record Company, J.W. Alexander, Personal Manager Personified; Dino Lappas, Engineer.

Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone who walks into a recording studio is an accomplished singer with the ability to chracterize his or her vocal stylings to fit the mood, song, or situation. A few of today’s vocalists are deft in the art of expression. . . or enunciation . . . or the feeling of a mood. But, few can combine the many talents and characteristics so necessary to becoming one of the top vocalists of the day . . . and even fewer can combine them well enough to “stay on the top” of the hit lists and in the minds of the record-buying public. Such, however, is not the case with SAM COOKE . . for he is here to stay!

Most avid fans know of SAM COOKE’s meteoric rise to fame with his first KEEN recording of “YOU SEND ME” . . . a record that sold the world over into the millions. Few of Sam’s newer fans, however, know of his early training and experience with groups of gospel and spiritual singers, among them the Soul Stirrers and the Pilgrim Travelers . . . an experience that, to a great extent, prepared Sam for the long, hard road to stardom and fame.

It was not until Sam divorced himself from the Soul Stirrers that he began to sing in the popular vein. But in leaving – for the most part – the spiritual field of music, Sam kept one of the most important elements in spiritual singing and transferred it into his popular vocalizing . . . sincerity. It is this natural quality of expression that has helped to mold Sam Cooke’s future in the field of popular music.

In this album, we find Sam combining the best of his talents on twelve selections that run the gamut of musical forms and styles . . . from the popular ballad and uptempo “top 40” type of song to the heartfelt spiritual and blues. Needless to say, the SAM COOKE SONG BOOK would not be complete without the inclusion of the BILLIE HOLIDAY REPERTOIRE. Such songs as “GOD BLESS THE CHILD”, “SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY”, I’VE GOT A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES”, “GOOD MORNING HEARTACHES”, “T’AIN’T NOBODY’S BUSINESS (WHAT I DO)”, “LOVER GIRL”, “LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF”, “LOVER COME BACK TO ME”, “SOLITUDE”, “THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME”, AND “CRAZY IN LOVE WITH YOU”, will bring back long remembered memories of that great star.

It is an honor for me to join in this Tribute to the Lady, with my friend Sam Cooke. The Lady namely being one of my all-time favorite entertainers, the great Billie Holiday. All the tunes are songs the incomparable Lady Day made famous, and as Sam Cooke presents this humble musical salute to Billie, it brings back many nostalgic memories of days with her; arranging and playing on many of her sessions as far back as 1938. this is a sincere tribute by young Cooke, who has the skill and vocal finesse to inject many of the same heart warming qualities and feelings into a song that the great Lady Day has. BENNY CARTER