Jerry Wexler called him 'the best singer who ever lived, no contest'. Yet think of Sam Cooke and you think: Grecian good looks, irresistible charm and style, and a voice that rings out like a glorious, golden peal, cooing ‘You Send Me’ down the corridors of eternity.įor the best part of 15 years, Cooke was an archangel, a black American hero. Whatever the doubts and suspicions surrounding the shooting – and there are still many – it is hard to see it as a martyr's death.
FEW ENTERTAINERS have fallen quite so far from grace as Sam Cooke did when he died, 30 years ago, at the Hacienda Motel in south-central Los Angeles.
