Sam cooke singer biography samples

Sam Cookebiography

Songwriter and performer Sam Cooke was one of the most popular and influential black singers to emerge in the late '50s, successfully to synthesize a blend of gospel music and secular themes and provided the early foundation of soul music.

Cooke's pure, clear vocals were widely imitated, and his suave, sophisticated image set the style of soul crooners for the next decade.

Sam Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on January 22, 1931, but grew up in Chicago, where his father Charles became a minister in the Church of Christ Holiness Church.

By age nine Sam, with his two sisters, formed a gospel trio the Singing Children.

Sam cooke singer death

As a teenager, he was a member of the nationally famous Highway Q.C.'s (so named because their home base was the Highway Baptist Church) with his younger brother, L.C. Cook. It was here that they sang with all the leading gospel groups of the day when they passed through Chicago.

It was also where J.W. Alexander, tenor and manager of