Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke Page 33

  J.W. had no doubt that “Bumps should have protected Sam better.” J.W. was staying temporarily with his lead singer Lou Rawls’ mother, Evie, and her husband, Marion Wooten Beal, whom everyone called “Keg” because he had always wanted to be a bartender and, in the absence of achieving his professional ambitions, had set up a bar in his own home. J.W.’s latest marriage had recently broken up mostly because his wife, Shelley, had started working as a manicurist at La Couture and fallen in with a sporting crowd, but also because she disapproved of what she termed his unhealthy professional preoccupation with Sam Cooke. “She thought the only reason I was interested in working with him was because we was friends in the gospel.” She accused him of neglecting his own career for a pipe dream, and she dismissed out of hand any claims he might make for Sam Cooke’s extraordinary talent, appeal, and artistic potential.

  On July 1, 1958, J.W. registered his new publishing company with BMI. It was called Kags after Lou’s stepfather, Keg (his second choice, if “Kags” had already been taken, was Evie for Lou’s mother), and he had just two songs in it. But he had long since come to recognize the value of publishing. Label and record store owner John Dolphin had told him, “You know, they making thousands of dollars off you. You should have a publishing company of your own.” And now he did, and one day that summer, as they were leaving the Keen studio, he told Sam about it. Sam said that was all well and good, but what did it have to do with him? Keen was going to give him publishing on his own songs. “I said, ‘Don’t you believe that. They won’t give you no publishing. You ought to have a company yourself.’ I said, ‘I ain’t got nothing going, but [at least] I got a company.’”

  Sam didn’t say anything more for a while, but he seemed to give the matter some thought, and then he told Alex to learn all he could on the subject. And while he was at it, Sam said, maybe Alex could supply him with a good ballad from that publishing company of his. So J.W. did. “I wrote a song called ‘Little Things You Do,’ and I told Sam, ‘[If you’re going to record it], sing it just because of the song, not because of our friendship.’” When Sam said that that was exactly why he was going to record it, because he loved the song, J.W. immediately released the news to the press, including the fact that it came from J.W. Alexander’s own newly formed publishing company and that “orchestras and arrangers can get the sheet music through . . . Kags.”

  Sam sought J.W.’s advice about Barbara, too. Bumps had been warning Sam that bringing her out to California could constitute a violation of the Mann Act, but J.W. told him that was nonsense, Barbara wasn’t under age and, anyway, white slavery didn’t apply. On the matter of Jess Rand he was more ambivalent. He didn’t like Jess, and he could tell the cocky little PR man didn’t much care for him, treating him with condescension and dismissing his views as if they were by definition naive and without merit. And yet he knew that Jess had something to add, that Jess provided an unmistakable veneer of respectability by putting a white face on Sam’s business—and that he was going to undercut Bumps’ standing with Sam, too. So Alex encouraged Sam to continue to solicit Jess’ professional counsel while never doubting for a moment that Sam would keep coming to him, J.W., on both personal and professional matters.

  The Cavalcade of Jazz took place on August 3 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the scene of Sam’s first meeting with Bumps as well as Bumps’ formal introduction to gospel music just three short years ago. Past stars of the show included Nat “King” Cole, Billy Eckstine, Louis Jordan, Count Basie, and Little Richard, and Sam’s fellow headliners at the Shrine were Little Willie John, Ray Charles, and bandleader Ernie Freeman, with whom he had gone out in February. Four of the city’s most prominent r&b jocks—Charles Trammel, Huggy Boy, Jim Randolph, and Hunter Hancock—served as an integrated team of MCs, and Sammy Davis Jr. was drafted to present the crown for the Miss Cavalcade of Jazz beauty contest, whose judges included DooTone label owner Dootsie Williams and Los Angeles Sentinel gossip columnist Gertrude Gipson.

  Jess Rand was there and saw to it that his two clients had their picture taken together. Sam had a genuine admiration for Sammy, most of all for his sophistication, his savoir faire, and his taste in clothes, and Jess was quick to let him know where Sammy got his tuxedos custom-made in New York. Sam had been flattered, too, when Jess told him that he was one of the few stars that Sammy didn’t even try to imitate—because, Sammy said, Sam’s style was inimitable. They got along all right, as far as Jess could tell, especially given that they were from such entirely different worlds, but he couldn’t fail to notice that Sam was no more above flirting with Sammy’s girl than Sammy was above pulling social rank on Sam. To Jess, Sammy was the more complete entertainer by far, not to mention the more “legitimate” act. He was well aware, though, by virtue of both Sammy’s ironclad commitment to, and managerial contract with, his “uncle” Will Mastin (Sammy was still billed with his father as part of the same Will Mastin Trio he had joined at the age of three, even though he had long since established himself as a solo act) that he would never officially be Sammy’s manager, as frequently as he might have fulfilled that role. At the same time, he knew there were places he could take Sam, both through his connections and through Sam’s undeniable talent, and he was confident that with a well-versed musical ally like Clif White, who shared Jess’ love of Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, and the classical school of pop songwriting, he could educate Sam and introduce him to whole new worlds, worlds that Bumps could never even imagine.

  All of the headliners were advertised with their own bands. Ray Charles had the same incomparable septet with whom he had just played a mix of his own hits, jazz originals, and standards at the Newport Jazz Festival in July, while Little Willie John, whose “Talk to Me, Talk to Me,” was still on the pop charts after four months, was backed by a very different kind of group, Little Richard’s old backing band, the Upsetters. The Upsetters, with whom Sam had shared a bill just after Richard’s retirement the previous fall, were about as hard-rocking as anybody out there, and they put on a show. In combination with the delicate sinuousness of Willie’s voice, they couldn’t be beat. But Sam felt like the eight-piece band he had put together for his upcoming tour was a step in the right direction, especially after some of the mismatched units he and Clif had had to suffer with in the past. Bumps had insisted once again on putting his name on the package (it was, nominally, the Bumps Blackwell Orchestra), but Sam had hired Johnny Otis’ old drummer, Leard “Kansas City” Bell, as his personal bandleader, and Bell had in turn hired twenty-six-year-old Bob Tate, an experienced sax man originally from Phoenix, as musical director and arranger. With your own band, there was no question you could present your music the way you heard it—look at Ray, look at Willie—and with Clif as musical liaison, he felt fully confident of his ability to approach the music any way he liked, even on a standard in his own style. Just like Ray.

  Barbara arrived with Linda eight days later, on the day after her twenty-third birthday, but by then Sam was already out on tour. Her uncle met them at the airport, and she was going to stay with him, but Sam had left the keys to his apartment and $2,000 in the bank for her to fix it up real nice. It was the same way she had started with Diddy, telling him she needed a steady job and then working as his housekeeper—which was how they ended up living together. Sam had told her he wasn’t going to be home for any length of time for quite a while, but she just hoped for her little girl’s sake that if he liked what she did with the apartment, it might work out the same way.

  The tour had opened in San Jose on August 8 and worked its way up the Coast. It was a kind of Keen Records Revue, with Bumps’ wife, Marlene, opening, the Travelers singing pop songs and backgrounding Sam, plus Marti Barris, the Valiants, and Johnny “Guitar” Watson. The only nonlabel acts were Obediah “Young” Jessie, whose “Mary Lou” was a West Coast r&b staple, and, for one or two dates, a couple of young white guys named Jan and Arnie who had just graduated from high school and were coming off a big po
p hit with “Jennie Lee.” No one could quite figure out what the white boys were doing there (“They were singing some of that surfer stuff,” said Bob Tate, “and it just didn’t go over”), and Young Jessie for some reason was given the unenviable task of following Sam, but they tore up the crowd everywhere they went, and even the Travelers got the house once in a while with their corny old routines.

  “We had a ball,” said Rip Spencer of the Valiants’ experience on the tour. “We did ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly,’ ‘This Is the Night,’ Roy Hamilton’s tune ‘Don’t Let Go,’ and [Bobby Darin’s current hit] ‘Splish Splash.’ It was Billy, Brice, Chester, and myself, and Sam called us ‘Rip ’Em Up,’ ‘Brice ’Em Down,’ ‘Billy in the Middle,’ and ‘Chester on the Side.’ We were young, handsome guys, and I think Sam might have been a little jealous [even though] we were an opening act, because the girls really went for us. We had a routine, we had these nice red scarves, we’d wear them like ascots, and take them off and wave ’em, and the girls would grab them and like to pull me and Chester off the stage. Oh man, the girls were a dime a dozen. I mean, they would sneak in the hotels, climb up the fire escape, we had one group of girls would follow us from town to town, but if anything else came through, you just gave them the line, ‘We got to take care of some business.’”

  Johnny “Guitar” Watson grew so tired of the Valiants’ adolescent high spirits that he put them out of the car on the way to Sacramento. He just said, “All right, you niggers, get out,” and roared off in his rose-colored Cadillac, leaving them stranded on the side of the road—which is where they might have remained if Kansas City Bell hadn’t come along right behind him in his little equipment camper and picked them up.

  On their way to Oakland, Sam and Clif stopped off in Monterey to see Clif’s mother, who was still working as a domestic for a wealthy white family. She had never shown much interest in her son’s career, “she never had been for me being in music, because musicians as far as she was concerned were a bunch of bums.” But she was a great gospel singer, and when Clif told her that Sam used to sing with the Soul Stirrers, “from then on, man, he was king.”

  Bob Tate could appreciate that it was a revue with something for everyone; even the “working girls” turned out for Johnny “Guitar” Watson. But there was no question who was the focal point. “You know, a voice comes along every so many years that just captivates the people, and [Sam] had one of those voices. After Sam got through upsetting the house, there wasn’t nothing you could do.” Tate was the kind of taskmaster who could piss a lot of people off because he wanted his music right, but, he quickly came to realize, Sam wanted it right, too. That was what made playing Sam’s music so satisfying, and there was no question Sam was satisfied with the job he was doing, because when the tour was over, Sam told him to hang loose, he had a few weeks’ worth of bookings to fulfill, but then they’d be going out again very soon.

  SAM BARELY HAD TIME to get acquainted with his five-year-old daughter before he was off again for club dates in Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. Linda was enthralled as he drew elaborate pictures for her on long sheets of paper, and they drove around, the three of them, in his wing-tipped Cadillac, while his latest record, “Win Your Love For Me,” played on the radio. She loved the sound of the congas, it was as if they were calling to her from some far-off land, and she loved the way her father spoke to her, almost as if she were an adult. He talked to her about his plans. He talked to her about his music. And he told her about himself and her mother, how they had first fallen in love, but then things didn’t work out and they hadn’t been able to get along. That didn’t mean they hadn’t always loved her, though, and now that she was finally with him, he was going to take care of her and make sure everything was all right. He would sit with her for what seemed like hours just talking in that calm, soothing voice, animated with love and laughter. There was no question about it, Barbara thought, he had really gotten his daughter’s heart.

  HE OPENED FOR TWO WEEKS at the swanky Black Orchid on Rush Street in Chicago on August 21 backed by Clif and a sophisticated white jazz combo, the Joe Parnello Trio. The focus of the set was not the hit numbers he had recently been playing for delirious audiences up and down the West Coast but a selection of standards like the ones he had been recording recently for his forthcoming second album (Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters’ “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive,” Billie Holiday’s “I Cover the Waterfront,” the Ink Spots’ “The Gypsy,” even the Mills Brothers’ “Someday You’ll Want Me to Want You”). Johnny Mathis had broken attendance records at the Black Orchid in May, but, Variety reported, “Sam Cooke’s disk stature is of very uncertain value here, [and] this intime smart spot . . . will have to count largely on external factors . . . per the wide open spaces at the opener.”

  Variety’s reservations, interestingly, had less to do with Cooke’s “nice beat,” “authoritative piping,” or “smart catalogue” than with his “vocal sincerity for outfront focus. As they play now, pipes are a bit too mechanical to really rouse tablers. Talk is minimal, his patter limited to some brief intros, and spoken without a show bizzy flavor.” He was, in other words, as Variety saw it, still suffering from that same inability to loosen up that Larry Auerbach had first noted in his Elegante and Copa appearances, and that Jess Rand was convinced was holding him back from gaining the acceptance of an upscale white audience.

  The Chicago Defender, on the other hand, was burdened with no such doubts. They deemed the smart-spot debut of this hometown phenomenon “socksational” and dispatched a reporter and photographer to capture it in a two-part feature that would run the following month. Skipping the jitters of opening night for a weekend crowd of hometown friends and acquaintances, they found a singer who was “completely relaxed, [endeared] himself to his audience by telling them little things about [each] song,” and effectively mesmerized that audience by “drawing them into the mood with his soft voice. . . . If he’s crooning a ballad, you can hear an audible sigh when he finishes. But if he belts out with something like ‘Canadian Sunset’ the audience joins him in popping their fingers [and] when he’s through cries of ‘more, more’ follow him off the stage.”

  It’s always hard to adjudicate these kinds of aesthetic, social, and, unquestionably, racial divisions, especially so long after the fact, but the pictures taken by Defender photographer Cleo Lyles show a very relaxed Sam, sleekly elegant in his tux and jubilant on a visit to his old neighborhood, where he is shown surrounded by friends and acquaintances and bemused by his brother L.C.’s boldly blond girlfriend Barbara Clemons. The text once again elucidates what he has clearly come to see as the Horatio Alger pattern of his life: his father’s faith, the family’s history, the triumphs of the Singing Children and the Highway QCs, not to mention the sodality of the Junior Destroyers social club, with each family member and QC, Duck, and even several Junior Destroyers (including Cleo Lyles) duly named. He fully expounds upon the debt he owes to spiritual music and his various mentors, Crain most of all, and L.C. is credited as the prolific songwriter responsible for much of his success. L.C., the story mentions, is “better known in the musical world around Chicago as Larry Lee,” but it fails to note that L.C. is about to embark for the first time on a full-fledged career of his own. He has just signed with the Checker label, in fact, where he will soon cut his first sides (not as “Larry Lee” but as L.C. Cook) under the supervision of his longtime manager, Magnificent Montague, recently returned to Chicago after two years of exile on the Coast.

  His principal hobby, Sam tells Cleo Lyles, is photography, and he shows Lyles the $600 Hasselblad 500C with which he likes to take candid shots. He has a lot more equipment at home, he says, for with his success, he has been able to afford far more than he could ever have dreamt of. As to what he plans to do with his money in the long term, however, “I’m setting on it and waiting,” he wisely declares.

  In Detroit he played for the first time at the famous Flame Show Bar, one of the most celebrated
“black-and-tan” (white ownership, black locale, mixed clientele) showplaces in the country, where both LaVern Baker and Johnnie Ray were discovered and where Gwen Gordy, the sister of a young songwriter named Berry Gordy who had cowritten Jackie Wilson’s first two hits, had the photography concession. It was a gala occasion, and Crain invited Little Willie John’s sister Mable, whose family gospel group had appeared on programs with the Soul Stirrers and who now worked for Gwen and Berry Gordy’s mother’s insurance company. “Everybody went to see him,” said Mable, “they never had so many Christians at the Flame! ’Cause, naturally, they loved him as a gospel singer, and they wanted to see the transition. And he was great. He was handsome, well dressed, composed, and he did what Mrs. Gordy taught me [in the insurance business]: if you want to be good at anything and you want a following, don’t try to sell your product first, sell yourself. Because once they trust you, people will buy [whatever you’re selling]. That’s what Sam did, he sold himself, and the church people just crowded the Flame.”

  In St. Louis he played the Club Riviera, the self-billed “Showplace of America,” and stayed at the Atlas Hotel two blocks away, where his Hasselblad was stolen, along with most of his clothes. By the time the story got back to Los Angeles, by way of Chazz Crawford’s California Eagle gossip column, a “thoughtful thief” had taken the trouble “to pay Sam’s hotel bill on the way out,” just another example of the way in which celebrity both paid its own way and exacted its dues. The following week the Eagle reported with equally poetic license that Sam might get “the Negro lead in Columbia Studio’s ‘Last Angry Man’ film.” It was rumored, reported Chazz Crawford on an uncredited tip from Jess Rand, that “Sammy Davis wanted the role but would be too old for the part.”