Weston Chapman

Lovable, Sam Cookes First Pop Single

When Sam Cooke was a boy he would jam popsicle sticks in the ground of his fathers
churchyard and sing old spirituals to a wooden audience. He knew where he belonged. A passion
for music and performing was clear in him from a very young age. But more importantly, Cooke
had a desire for attention and an ambition to prove himself that drove him to expand and improve
upon his musical style and unique performability. As a child he sang in a Gospel group called
The Singing Children with his siblings. They would perform for his itinerate minister fathers
church services. He sang tenor, not lead, which allowed him to develop his musical skills in the
background while also cultivating a desire to be the center of attention. It wasnt until Cooke
took to the forefront as a teenager singing lead in The Highway Q.C.s that his talent began to be
recognized and his career as a Gospel performer started to take off ("Sam Cooke: Crossing
Over") .
Fronting this quintet Cooke developed quickly and became comfortable leading a group.
His talent, passion, and charisma on stage did not go unnoticed for long. It quickly became clear
that Cooke had a procilvity for music that was beyond his years and this eventually gained the
attention of The Soul Stirrers, an already established and extremely well respected Gospel group.
Cooke, a relative unknown at the time, replaced a gospel icon, R.H. Harris, as the lead singer of
The Soul Stirrers in 1950. The group was already popular in the Gospel community, and Cooke
easily transitioned into the spotlight as the groups de facto leader. After a groundbreaking six
years with The Soul Stirrers, however, Cooke began to become unsatisfied with being
pigeonholed into a lifetime career as a Gospel singer and he set himself to branching out into
popular music ("Sam Cooke: Crossing Over") .

Cooke was too talented, smart, and perhaps egotistical to let himself be trapped inside the
limited market of Gospel music. He had come as far as singing spirituals in churches could ever
take him and his talent and ambition proved to be too big to be satisfied while remaining in the
Gospel world. The Soul Stirrers were the most popular Gospel group even when R.H. Harris
was leading them, and when Cooke took over the group soared to a whole new level and truly
went as far as any Gospel group could go. They had tremendous commercial success in the
Gospel market with singles like Jesus Gave Me Water, and played in churches all over the
country ("Sam Cooke: Crossing Over") . They were the group that other Gospel singers modeled
themselves after, but it seems Cooke was not satisfied with being number one merely in this
limited, niche market.
Cooke was a handsome, talented, and a charismatic and intoxicating performer; things
that make being a good, traditional Christian boy difficult . The popularity of The Soul Stirrers
within the Gospel community gave Cooke a taste of what mainstream success would be like. He
brought Gospel music to the kids. Young people, particularly girls, started coming to church just
to see Cooke. Cooke generally appealed to both the young and old audiences in a church through
his synthesis of technical talent, youthful charm, and dynamic stage pressence, but on occasion
billowy-hatted church ladies took issue with his subliminally sexualized performances. Cookes
performances often times might have seemed to center around himself rather than God. This was
likely true, and became a big motivator in Cookes push into popular music. It seems he was
becoming tired of sharing a stage with the Holy Spirit.
In a 1964 interview with Dick Clark, Cooke half-jokingly cited his economic situation
as what sparked him to begin a career in popular music ("Sam Cooke: Crossing Over"). Certainly
there is more money in pop music than Gospel if you can make it, and Cooke definitely had what

it took to make it. More important than talent though was Cookes marketability. Cooke had
more than just a raw aptitude for music. He was nice to look at, charming, and new how to write
songs that people would be willing to pay for.
This was as important back then as it is today. Cooke had everything he needed and more
to be successful in a crossover popular music career. He certainly had musical talent and creative
understanding as proven by his success in the Gospel circuit (an audience that doesnt typically
care about what you look like while singing) and he had the look and charisma, as proven by his
Pied Piper like ability to lure teenage girls into church halls to hear him sing. He was the
complete package. He was eager to further his musical outreach, and the apparent ease at which
he could transition into the gilded world of pop music made the idea too tantalizing to pass up.
In 1956 Cooke made his first pop music attempt by putting out an album under the alias
Dale Cooke ("Sam Cooke:Crossing Over"). This fake name was likely an attempt by Cooke to
test the pop music waters without the risk of ostracizing any of his Gospel fans. Singing secular
music was frowned upon in the Gospel music scene, and Cooke didnt want to take the chance of
being boxed out of a market he knew he could fall back on if his pop career didnt pan out.
However, Cookes distinctive singing style was easily recognized and Dale Cooke was quickly
unmasked. While this was mildly controversial in the Gospel community, it didnt take long for
people to come around and accept the transition. Cookes minister father, while initially
apprehensive of his sons new music career, eventually had this to say of Sams movement into
pop music: If you can make more money singing pop music than you can the church-style
youve been singing, then thats not your religion, thats your job. This eventually seems to
become the opinion of the majority of the Gospel crowd. Cooke was given tacit permission to
make money singing popular songs and so he was still embraced by the Gospel community. He

often performed guest spots with the Soul Stirrers even at the height of his pop music career. It
was clear that Cooke maintained a love and admiration for Gospel even after he had become
internationally successful ("Sam Cooke:Crossing Over").
The song Lovable, a transposition of the gospel song Wonderful which Cooke had
previously sung with The Soul Stirrers, became Sam Cookes flagship single (Sam Cooke.
Biography). This song yielded itself nicely to a genre reworking. The melody is catchy and
sweet and the simple piano accompaniment and vocal overdubs put the focus on Cookes voice.
The song nicely highlights his technical ability without seeming overly indulgent. This is
something that seems much trickier to do with pop music than with gospel.
In the gospel version Wonderful, Cooke allows himself to really let his voice go. He
allows for intricate vocal runs, and lets his voice open up completely. He sings from his gut with
power and control. With Lovable though, Cooke doesnt really take his voice as far as it could
go. Perhaps this was an attempt to remain conservative as to not blow his cover as Dale Cooke,
but I think more likely its because gospel songs seem to lend themselves to a more passionate
singing performance than pop songs do. With pop songs, particularly with a crossover performer
like Cooke, it is much easier to seem over indulgent and show-offish with vocal performances.
Singing a vocal centered pop song is completely a display of the singer. Especially with
powerhouse singers like Cooke, the lions share of the attention is focused on the song's melody
and vocal performance. Its much easier to recall the vocal melody from A Change is Gonna
Come than it is the musical accompaniment. Everything else is in the background when you
have a singer like Sam Cooke. With gospel though, the singer is never the true primary center of
attention. They are hidden behind the Holy Spirit. Its impossible to seem overly full of yourself
when singing gospel songs. No matter how passionate or musically brilliant a performance is, the

attention goes to God. The singer is just a vessel. This is perhaps why many gospel songs seem
so purely sincere and why Cookes performance in Lovable seems a bit restrained. There was
likely some trepidation in his crossing over into pop music as it is a much more character based
genre. The singer is the star of the song. They are allowed to take all the credit for their musical
ability and coming off of such a prominent gospel career it would have been easy for Cooke to
appear to be a bit vain. God can no longer be used as a buffer for musical prowess. A transition
from gospel to pop now means that Cooke takes full credit for his own ability.
With Lovable, Cooke takes the possessive noun my God and supplants it with my
girl and then swaps out verses meant to make spirit-filled church ladies fall out of their pews
with ones that would make fourteen year old girls swoon. The lyrics in Wonderful offer up the
opportunity of spiritual transcendence. Cook invites us to try the Lord one day and see when my
father come down and make a way. This is something he cant offer up with his girl in
Lovable. One song is about a spiritual catharsis, and the other is about how sweet a girl is.
Cooke moves the focus from the universal salvation the love of God can provide to how much he
loves his girl. One has much more emotional depth than the other. Pop music is undeniably a
more selfish and image obsessed genre than gospel. Its easy to see how much emotion could be
easily lost in the performance of this song.
The melody and general musical structure of Lovable remains largely unchanged.
However, the song lacks the passion of performance that Cooke put into its gospel version. Its
much more heavily produced, which can be expected of most pop songs. Lovable is a much
crisper sounding recording than Wonderful, but it lacks the rawness and emotion that
Wonderful had.

Cookes performance in Lovable feels significantly more clean cut than that of
Wonderful. This seems counter intuitive as one would think a gospel song would necessarily
be more concerned with how its content is perceived, but it is clear here that these early Sam
Cooke pop recordings were much more image concerned than any of his gospel work.
Necessarily so, I would say. Everything in pop at this time is filtered through market predictions
of what an audience wants to see and hear. This is made clear by the pop music charts in 1956
and 1957. Elvis Presley was on top and had number one singles with Hound Dog and
Jailhouse Rock (Top 100 Songs of 1956.) Elvis was as much a business as he was a musician.
He was cultivated specifically to sell records to a target audience. Its impossible to take the song
Jailhouse Rock seriously. Its clearly all an act, but it adds to Elviss brooding bad boy image.
And while Elvis may not have been the most sincere performer, he did sell a lot of records.
Loveable is an excellent example of how important presenting the right image was in
pop music. The song doesnt feel entirely sincere or organic, it seems somewhat over processed
and cultivated. When I hear it, I picture Sam Cooke with a plastered on phony smile trying to
appear as charming and non-threatening as possible. With his Gospel work I never felt he needed
to try. It seems clear to me that he is pandering to a specific audience that he is unsure whether
or not he will be accepted by. This is a complete turn from his performance of Wonderful.
Wonderful doesnt sound filtered at all. Sam Cooke taps into a vein of passion that is lacking
in his early pop recordings. When I hear him sing Wonderful, I dont imagine him trying to
cultivate any type of image in particular. He lends himself and his voice completely to the song.
This trial run of Cooke in the pop world gave him enough of a footing and confidence to
devote himself entirely to a pop career. Less than a year later, he had supplanted Elvis as the
number one spot holder on the pop charts with You Send Me (Top 100 Songs of 1957). Cooke

eventually was able to bring together the passion of his gospel music with his pop song writing
ability to become one of the most groundbreaking and respected recording artists of all time.
Without his upbringing in gospel though, it is unlikely that Cooke would have ever been
able to tap in to the passion he brought to his pop career. His roots were in gospel and as it turns
out this made him an ideal pop performer, which lead the way to him becoming a pioneer in the
soul music genre and inspiring countless of other musicians.

Works Cited
Top 100 Songs of 1956. 26 Apr 2013. www.jamrockentertainment.com/billboard-music-top100-songs-listed-by-year/top-100-songs-1957.html.

Top 100 Songs of 1957. 26 Apr 2013. http://www.jamrockentertainment.com/billboard-musictop-100-songs-listed-by-year/top-100-songs-1957.html

"Sam Cooke." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Apr 26 2013, 04:46
http://www.biography.com/people/sam-cooke-9256129.

Antonelli, John, dir. "Sam Cooke:Crossing Over." Writ. Noland Walker. American Masters. .
Television.