Ruth Brown on Sam Cooke

From:   

Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend

PAGE 123-125

“I first heard about a young man by the name of Sam Cooke from my brother Benny, who’d caught an appearance with the Soul Stirrers gospel group during a tour of Southern churches.

“They’ve got this kid who can sing up a storm, but with the cleanest, purest voice you ever heard,” is how Benny put it during my second tour with Billy and Basie. I met Sam just a week or so later in Houston, where promoter Don Robey had booked Mr. B and myself into the only hotel that would accept black entertainers. The Soul Stirrers and another gospel group, the Pilgrim Travelers, were in there at the same time, together with a whole bunch of other artists, among them Johnny Ace (Don Robey’s young star on his Duke Record label), veteran Willie Mae Thornton and Little Richard and his Upsetters.

When we all got together that night and sallied forth for something to eat, Sam introduced himself. We broke off for a spell from the rest of the company as he let his hair down and discussed the dilemma facing him. He felt pulled in the direction of R and B, blues and secular music in general, but was scared of abandoning his roots. “I want to be real sure of exactly what it is I want to do,” he told me. “It’s easy to get out there – I’ve had offers – but a lot harder to get back in.”

“I know,” I replied, “they’ll say the devil’s got you. Sam, I know the feeling.”

After the meal we all ended up on the steps arund the side of the hotel – Sam, Willie Mae, Billy, Little Richard, Johnny, the guitar man from the Pilgrim Travelers, and myself. Oh Lord, how I wish I’d had a tape recorder with me, for the sounds that reverberated through that Texas night were something else entirely. As soon as the guitar man sounded his first chord Sam began singing the hymn all of had agreed was the first we’d learned, “Jesus Loves Me (This I Know).” Little Richard came in at the halfway stage, calling and responding to Sam like some demented angel. We all had our moments of glory on numbers that tumbled out one after the other, pairing up as the spirit dictated, soloing where there was space and humming in the mellow background on “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” “That Old Rugged Cross” and “Abide With Me.” Let nobody claim we were found wanting during those few hours in the sight of the Lord. My father, who had recently passed away, could not have had a finer memorial service, for there was everything he would have wished –true dignity, devotion and fervor, whether expressed in sacred or secular terms. Sam was a sweetheart, a hunk all wrapped in white, a darling, and we often turned up at each other’s gigs after that. The last time I saw him before his tragic death was at a club in Miami, the Harlem Square, where he made his wonderful live recording.