Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke (96 page)

Cassius and Malcolm went to the UN the next day, where they were given a two-hour tour and Clay announced his plans to accompany Malcolm to Asia and Africa (“I’m champion of the
whole
world, and I want to meet the people I am champion of”), while signing autographs for UN workers and African delegates as “Cassius X Clay.”

Very likely that same day, Sam accompanied him to a New York television studio for a transatlantic interview with Harry Carpenter, the dean of British boxing commentators, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the repartée. After a five-minute analysis of the fight, punctuated by jokes, poetry, and Sam’s off-camera chuckles, Carpenter asked, “Cass, who’s that you’ve got there with you in the New York studio?” “Well, here with me,” Cassius responded affably, “I have one of the greatest singers in America, and I would say all over the world, Mr. Sam Cooke. Come here, Sam, I’ve got the British press here. This is Sam Cooke. As you can see, like me, he’s awful pretty.”

Sam is all smiles, dressed to the nines in a sharp, shiny suit and a radiant smile, as he perches on the edge of the microphone table with his arm around Cassius. They’ve been working on a record, which they expect to have out in another week, Clay says. “Would you like to give us a preview?” asks the host, and Cassius starts to explain how much better it would sound with the chorus behind him and the party atmosphere they created in the studio, until Sam, relaxed but clearly attentive to every nuance not just of Clay’s speech but of his physiognomy as well, starts beating out a rhythm on the table. “Come on,” he says, “let’s give them —” And then, tentatively at first, Clay starts singing the first verse, his eyes glued on Sam, as Sam guides the vocal with a softly voiced vocal of his own.

Hey, hey, the gang’s all here, join in the fun

Hey, hey, the gang’s all here, we gonna swing as one

When they come to the chorus (“Is New York with me? Is Chicago with me? Is London with me?”), it is Sam who adds his full-throated “Yeah,” to indicate, as Cassius has already explained to Carpenter, the high regard in which he is held throughout the world. It is a thoroughly charming performance, both for its artlessness and for the obvious affection that exists between the two men, and at the end, when Cassius asks his interviewer, “How’d you like that?,” the response is instantaneous and sincere. “I like that very much.”

“Well, Cassius, it’s been really great fun talking to you,” Carpenter says after Sam has gracefully excused himself. “It seems to me that you are to some extent a changed man. I detect a little quieting down, a little more dignity behind you. Is this right?”

“Well, I have changed a little,” replies the champ. “I don’t have to talk like I used to. I’ve been campaigning. Take politicians, for an example. They walk the streets, talk to people, meet people, shake hands, pass out pickets, talk about how great they are, ‘Vote for me’—and then after they’re in office, they quieten down.” In the background is the sound of Sam (and maybe Alex, too) chuckling to himself. Once the politicians have gotten where they want to be, said Cassius, they don’t have to campaign anymore.

What he didn’t say, but what he had been saying to the New York press, was that in just a few days, when Malcolm’s suspension from public speaking would be ended by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he wouldn’t have to talk anymore, at least not about his faith, because Malcolm’s words would be so much more eloquent than his own. But Malcolm’s suspension was not ended. In fact, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, inflamed by Malcolm’s growing identification with the most celebrated public convert in the Nation’s forty-year history, as well as Malcolm’s all-too-evident disillusionment with his leadership, called up Cassius Clay two days later, on the evening of March 6, and told him that he must permanently sever his relationship with Malcolm. He told Cassius that he must also embrace the new name, Muhammad Ali, that Elijah had given him. Clay had been resistant when Elijah first broached the subject. “Muhammad Ali” was an “original” (that is, Arabic) name, the kind of honorific that Elijah had publicly declared would not be bestowed until the Second Coming of the Founder, Wallace Fard. Not only that, it incorporated a portion of Fard’s own Islamic name. But with an official announcement of the name change that night on Elijah’s radio broadcast, Cassius Clay no longer had any choice in the matter.

That Sunday, March 8, Malcolm announced his break with the Nation of Islam, making it clear that the break was not of his own volition and referring to Elijah Muhammad on national television as “morally bankrupt.” He made numerous attempts to contact Muhammad Ali, but none of his calls were taken. A little over a month later, he set off on the pilgrimage to Mecca that he had discussed many times with his onetime protégé, from which he would return a spiritually changed man. In Ghana, Malcolm ran into Muhammad Ali, on his own pilgrimage to Africa, at the Hotel Ambassador, but Ali would not speak to him. “Did you get a look at Malcolm?” he declared sarcastically to reporters. “Dressed in that funny white robe and wearing a beard and walking with that cane that looked like a prophet’s stick? Man, he’s gone . . . so far out, he’s out completely. No one listens to Malcolm anymore.” “That hurt Malcolm more than any other [rejection],” said Malcolm X confidant and biographer Alex Haley. But they never spoke again, and Malcolm was assassinated by Muslims loyal to Elijah some eight months later.

A
LLEN KLEIN, MEANWHILE
, had flown to England on March 16 as an emissary for RCA. Joe D’Imperio empowered him to offer $1 million plus a 10 percent royalty to the Beatles, but when he met with their manager, Brian Epstein, in his suite at the Dorchester, on his own initiative he doubled the cash offer. Epstein, according to Allen, turned down the RCA bid out of hand, citing loyalty to EMI, their British label, but he did express interest in Sam opening for the group on their next American tour. This, Allen said, he would have to take under advisement—there were too many things up in the air right now. One of which was his own unanticipated signing of the Dave Clark Five, the number-two British band behind the Beatles, whose manager, Harold Davidson, came to see him at his hotel and, based on the success Allen had recently enjoyed with his renegotiation of Sam Cooke’s and Bobby Vinton’s contracts, asked if he could do the same for the Dave Clark Five. Allen took on the task with alacrity, eventually working out a complicated long-term payout of a quarter of a million dollars that would save the band money in taxes and net Allen $80,000 clear. He was full of fire, it was as if he had finally found his true vocation, and he was already looking around for more business and contemplating a return trip to England in the next month or two. But none of it could hold a candle to his unqualified dedication to Sam.

He renewed his suit for the Copa upon his return to New York, but not before approaching Buddy Howe, vice president of the General Artists Corporation (GAC), at Joe D’Imperio’s suggestion. Buddy Howe was, in Joe D’Imperio’s view, the best club agent in the business, with the most powerful agency at his disposal. (GAC was the agency with which Irvin Feld, who had created the original rock ’n’ roll package tour, had affiliated himself some six years earlier. GAC was also the agency that Jerry Brandt had left with his boss, Roz Ross, to join William Morris.)

“Buddy Howe went in and pulled every string,” Allen said admiringly. “He took me around [when] I didn’t know what the hell to fucking do. Buddy was a former song-and-dance man. He said, ‘Just watch my feet!’”

At Buddy’s urging, Allen got Joe to make a substantial commitment on behalf of RCA. “I told him he had to tell Podell exactly what he was going to do. That he was going to buy up the house every night. That we were going for the kids. That we would bring in blacks.” D’Imperio also told Podell how much he, personally, believed in Sam, that he saw in Sam the potential for a whole new kind of crossover success, and what could be more appropriate than that the Copa—faced with box-office challenges in changing times—should be in at the start? Allen, for his part, promised a billboard on Broadway, one that would be bigger than any opening at the Copa had ever seen. In the end, it was, as he saw it, a combination of Buddy’s credibility, Joe’s commitment, and his own bullshit that won the day, with Podell finally agreeing to two weeks at prom time. Allen still hadn’t signed with GAC. He was going to let Buddy continue to prove himself, just like he had had to do with Sam.

S
AM HEADLINED
a couple of big East Coast gigs, including Georgie Woods’ “Freedom Show of ’64” at Philadelphia’s fourteen-thousand-seat Convention Hall on March 17, with more than a dozen other acts on the bill (including his brother L.C.) and all proceeds earmarked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and three local charities. He appeared on Dick Clark’s Saturday-night show on April 4, newly relocated on the West Coast, and, after a lip-synched version of “Ain’t That Good News,” sat down for a nearly two-and-one-half-minute interview with Clark, an extended sequence within the rapid-fire framework of the show. Why had he turned to pop music in the first place? Clark asked at the outset.

“My economic situation,” Sam said with a laugh.

And was there any secret that Sam could point to as the key to his remarkable string of hit songs?

“I think the secret is really observation, Dick,” Sam responded. By which he meant? “Well, if you observe what is going on and try to figure out how people are thinking and determine the times of your day, I think you can always write something that people will understand.”

What of the future? Was he traveling like he used to? “No, I’m not, Dick. I’m mostly staying home now.”

“Will you produce and write and so forth?”

“I’m producing and writing, as I said, for other people.”

“What could be the greatest thing in the world that would happen to you, if you had your choice?”

“The greatest thing that [could] happen to me? If all the singers I’m connected with had hits.”

To that end he was focused more and more on the future of SAR. Despite all of Zelda’s dire predictions, Allen had organized things back in New York to reach a broader market. He had hired former Scepter a&r head Luther Dixon’s brother Barney Williams to do independent promotion in the r&b field, and he was planning to put Pete Bennett, the slick operator he had found to promote Sam’s singles, on the Valentinos’ new record when it came out. Cash flow had increased, Alex was enjoying being on a regular salary, and SAR’s informal new headquarters and rehearsal space at Thirty-seventh and Vermont was fully operational by now, with an old piano, carpet for soundproofing tacked up on the ceiling and walls, a couple of inexpensive tape recorders and mikes, and, as a finishing touch, the sign that bass player Chuck Badie had ceremoniously scrawled in chalk across the plate-glass window: Soul Station #1.

Harold Battiste and the AFO Executives were in charge, but Sam came down from time to time to check out what was going on. The AFO band might be rehearsing, Johnnie Morisette liked to use the storefront location as a kind of clubhouse, and, except for Johnnie Taylor, any of the other SAR artists was likely to stop by. You never knew who was going to show up. Local kids, well-known jazz musicians, even Sonny Bono, who went back with Harold to the glory days of Specialty. Sonny was working up an act with his new girlfriend, seventeen-year-old Cherilyn Sarkisian, as Caesar and Cleo, and Harold was supplying the song arrangements. Mostly, though, it was a hangout, a combination practice room and retreat, where Harold, newly named head of SAR Productions, scouted for fresh talent, sought to develop more exciting (and more commercial) musical settings for each artist already on the label, and mapped out plans for expansion into other neighborhoods with additional Soul Stations.

Sam’s principal expectations for the moment were centered on the Valentinos. Their March 24 session had ended up focusing primarily on a song Bobby had written with his sister-in-law, Friendly’s wife, Shirley. It was called “It’s All Over Now,” and it had a different sound, a kind of loose-jointed country flavor that Sam found odd at first but soon came to see as an exciting new direction for their music. Bobby thought one of the reasons Sam was so knocked out by it was that it sounded like none of his own songs, and they ran through twelve high-spirited takes as Johnnie Morisette screamed encouragement and beat on a newspaper while generally annoying the hell out of Bobby and his brothers.

They had another song, “If I Got My Ticket,” something which they had been working on at Soul Station #1 and believed in almost as strongly as “It’s All Over Now,” but after a couple of rehearsals, Sam pronounced it “too churchy” and told Bobby it needed more work, they ought to just set it aside until the Womacks had a chance to polish it and turn it into more of a finished song. It could not have come as a greater surprise, then, when Bobby and his brothers showed up at the studio to play on Sam’s session the following day, only to find him exploring the same groove, the same riff they had worked out for “If I Got My Ticket” as the centerpiece of a new number of his own.

“Yeah Man” was a song he had first come up with in England, a dance number along the lines of the call-and-response vehicle he had devised for Cassius Clay, with a large chorus responding to a series of rhetorical questions (“Do you like good music?” “Do you like all the dances?”) with a rousing “Yeah, yeah.” What made it different was the vocal charm, the rhythmic complexity, the agile horns, and booming bass. In an odd twist, Sam mixed in sports metaphors, too, and concluded with a situation far removed from the dance floor: “You in the middle of an ocean,” Sam sings out cheerfully. “Come on, baby,” someone in the chorus calls out, as Sam introduces an even more unexpected picture: “Ship going down now [“Yeah, yeah”] / Swim for your life now [“Yeah, yeah”] . . . Swim . . . Swim . . . I’m going home.”