Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke (52 page)

The new lawyer was Sam Reisman, Jess Rand’s father-in-law’s attorney, who had little experience in the music business but was recommended to Jess for that very reason (he would be free of all music-business entanglements) and for his tough-mindedness. The reason Sam needed a new lawyer was that he could no longer stay at Keen.

Not surprisingly, it was not just a matter of money but of the future as well. Like almost every small record company, Keen had run into cash-flow problems after its first flush of success. The essential challenge of a record label, like any independent enterprise, is that creditors and service providers almost always demand cash up front for the manufacture of the product, while customers hold off on payment till the last possible moment. In the record business, the principal service provider was the pressing plant, without whom you had no records, the chief wholesale customers a network of independent distributors who waited indefinitely on returns from retail outlets (in the record business there was an open-ended return policy) before paying for goods that they had, essentially, both bought and sold on consignment. The only solution for a small record company, then and now, was a continuous flow of hits: if the distributors wanted the upcoming product badly enough, then they would pay. But Keen, Sam had increasingly come to realize, had no hit records other than his own; indeed, his records could be said to be financing the label. Bumps by now had left the company with ongoing threats of a lawsuit and the unveiling of “a new idea in entertainment programming,” a gospel cabaret musicale called
Portraits in Bronze,
starring gospel singer Bessie Griffin. Herb Alpert and Lou Adler were in the midst of dissociating themselves from the company with a variety of independent projects of their own. And the label owed Sam both record and songwriter’s royalties. So it was not much of a leap for Sam to determine that he could do better. As a first step, he simply refused to record anymore for Keen. As a second, J.W. suggested that they start up a “production company” to serve as a kind of outlet for all the song ideas they now had floating around. And as a third, almost inevitable consequence of the second, they decided in the fall to establish a record label of their own.

The production company appears to have begun and pretty much come to an end with a session at the Capitol Records recording studio on July 24 that Sam booked and paid for with his own money. The principal idea was to overdub backing vocals on some of the demos that he and Alex had been cutting, and the song that he focused on in particular, “Just For You,” was set to the same kind of shimmering Latin beat that he had been drawn to since the previous summer. He overdubbed his own voice three successive times to achieve a light layered effect, then turned his attention to his and J.W.’s “sideways” adaptation, “Try a Little Love,” to which he applied a similar approach. The two sides would have made a perfect follow-up to his current single, “Only Sixteen,” which, perhaps because of all Keen’s other difficulties, was not selling as well as expected—but there was no way he was going to throw away good time, money, and effort after bad by giving Keen any more of his material.

In fact, he resisted all attempts by the label to mollify him. They still had not paid him his royalties for the last half of 1958, and as of August 15 he had yet to receive even a statement for the first half of the current year. The way his lawyer, Reisman, figured it, they owed him at least $20,000, and Reisman was looking into a way to void the contract altogether on the basis of this failure, a defect in the option language, or, most likely, both. It wasn’t that he had anything against the Siamases, either. It was nothing like the situation with Art. It was just that they didn’t know anything about the music business. And he was not going to allow himself to be shortchanged by someone else’s ignorance any more than by his own.

It was in this climate that he and Alex first learned that the Soul Stirrers had been dropped by Specialty. Gospel sales were down for all the groups, and, as J.W. knew, “Art just didn’t believe in [the Soul Stirrers] anymore. If the figures weren’t the same, he wasn’t interested.” Then the group came out to Los Angeles for a series of programs, and Crume called Sam to say they had an offer to go with Vee Jay, which had put together an all-star roster of gospel acts and was offering them more money than they had ever seen.

Sam and Alex saw it as an opportunity. At first the idea was simply to write some songs for the Stirrers, but it almost instantly evolved into a much grander scheme. “We should talk to them about recording them,” Sam said to his partner. Then he told the group, “Me and Alex can write some songs for you, and we can get your records played.” When Farley and Paul Foster expressed skepticism, he declared with a confidence born strictly of self-belief that he and Alex might not have the money that Art Rupe and Vee Jay had, but they had the money to record the Soul Stirrers, and the know-how to record them
right.
Plus, they would pay a higher royalty rate than either of the other companies, and the fellows knew they could always count on Alex and him to treat them fairly and to promote them right. In other words, Sam said, there was no way, in the long run, the group couldn’t come out ahead. And, after taking a vote, the group agreed. But not before Crume went back to Sam with a long face and said it looked like they would be going with Vee Jay. They couldn’t, Sam sputtered. Didn’t they understand the advantages they would be missing out on? Didn’t they understand—But then he caught on. “You fucker!” he exploded happily. “You’ll never regret this.”

That was the genesis of the record company. There was, as J.W. said, no “great plan” behind it. With the help of Walter E. Hurst, a white music business lawyer he and Sam had met through René Hall who was instructing J.W. in a wide range of basic business practices and principles, from contract law to office etiquette (“Recipients of letters which are written on good stationery with an executive typewriter,” Hurst wrote in a primer on the music industry, “are more impressed by such correspondence than by correspondence on ordinary sheets of paper written with a standard typewriter”), they set up a company simply in order to record the Soul Stirrers. The label was called SAR for Sam, Alex, and Roy, because Sam once again insisted that Crain be included. In fact, he had in mind that his brother Charles and Clif White, too, should be part of the enterprise. Sam said to J.W., “Let’s give them all a piece of the action,” but J.W. persuaded him to hold off at least until they saw if the business was even going to get off the ground. Their base of operations would be the living room of Alex’s apartment at 3710 West Twenty-seventh Street, and Alex began making calls right away to find out how to get SAR recordings pressed and distributed.

They started work on the songs right away, too, booking studio time for when the group would be back in Chicago on September 1. They demoed the songs with Sam singing lead and J.W. background, then sent Farley a tape and flew to Chicago for the session. The song they were pinning their hopes on was loosely suggested by “Stand By Me,” the Charles Tindley gospel standard from the turn of the century (Tindley, a freeborn Black Methodist minister who was Thomas A. Dorsey’s principal inspiration in the creation of modern “gospel” music, also wrote the song that was the prototype for the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” among many other gospel classics). What Sam and J.W. set out to do with the song, though, was something quite different from Tindley’s somber hymn-inspired approach. They created what was in essence a pop ballad, utilizing concise biblical references (to Daniel, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace) in the manner at which Sam had always proved himself so adept to convey loss, loneliness, and abandonment. The point was further underscored by an improbable pop bridge into which Sam crammed every sentiment of isolation that he could ever have felt in a tumble of syllables requiring patient elucidation if Soul Stirrers’ lead singer Johnnie Taylor was ever going to be able to get it right. “All of my money and my friends are gone / Lord, I’m in a mean world, and I’m so all alone / I need you / Stand by me,” Sam sang with feeling on the demo in the very voice that Johnnie had adopted so assiduously that many of their fans could scarcely tell the two of them apart. Then, in the bridge, he declared:

Well, sometimes I feel

Like the weight of the world is on my shoulders

And it’s all in vain

But when I begin to feel weak along the way

You call, and you give me strength again

It was a lover’s cry for help, an almost heartbroken admission of vulnerability, but, of course, it was not a lover, it was the Lord who was there to provide inspiration and support. None of the other three songs carried the weight, ambiguity, or emotional complexity of “Stand By Me Father”: two further collaborations between Sam and J.W. (“Wade in the Water” and “He’s Been a Shelter”) were vehicles for Paul Foster; the last (“I’m Thankful”) was a kind of sentimental recitation for Johnnie of all the things for which to be grateful, written by new Stirrers baritone Richard Gibbs. But, Sam and Alex were agreed, “Stand By Me Father,” if done right, had the potential to break both pop
and
gospel.

From the start it was all business—or perhaps it would be better to formulate it as J.W. did: the aim was to have fun but to take care of business, too. Johnnie Taylor, typically, didn’t. He was late for the session, and Sam got pissed off, but L.C. went off to fetch him, and when he returned, he reassured his brother that Johnnie was going to “‘sing better than you ever heard him sing.’ Sam told me, ‘C., [I’m sure] you right.’ But he didn’t like no playing when it come down to his business.”

The whole aim of what they were trying to do, Alex said, was to get the Stirrers to communicate the meaning of the song clearly. He and Sam both felt that “even when the spirit comes, [the listening audience] should be able to understand what is being said.” They shared the same philosophy in that respect, and they were equal partners in every other way, but there was no question that Sam was in charge in the studio. He had Crain sing tenor in place of Crume so Crume could concentrate on his guitar playing, and he had Clif playing on the session, along with a studio bass player and drummer. You can hear Sam’s enthusiastic voice all over the session tapes, prodding, encouraging, demonstrating a vocal figure, employing the “power of positive thinking,” putting all of his charm to work to get the best out of the group. “Hey, Paul, can you turn around and watch me?” the neophyte producer says to his former colleague. “Crume, concentrate on your figure, try to get it as clean as possible. . . . Johnnie, you’re sure swingin’ for me, baby. . . . Group, you’re doing nice. Just a little easier if it’s possible.” If J.W. is saying anything—and he undoubtedly is—he is saying it to Sam.

The session was every bit as rigorous as any Specialty date, but a lot more easygoing. Sam and Alex were determined to prove they could do it, and they did—with one exception. J.W. really believed that with “Stand By Me” they had a chance at a crossover record, “but Johnnie kept saying ‘Oh, Jesus,’ and I kept trying to get him to stop. And Sam got kind of pissed off and said, ‘Oh, let him go, Alex.’ Then I tried to edit it out afterwards, but I couldn’t do it, ’cause he was singing ‘Jesus’ on the beat!”

J.W. in any case had more far-reaching concerns in the immediate aftermath of the session. “I went to see Nate Duroff over at Monarch Record Manufacturing Plant, he was the biggest independent on the West Coast, and I said, ‘Sam Cooke and I are partners. We got a little money to make some records.’ And he said, ‘Save your money.’ I said, ‘Look, we already cut the record. I’m interested in getting pressings.’ So he quoted me prices and said, ‘Why do you want to get in the record business?’ I said, ‘I want to make good records.’ Then I told him I needed credit, and Nate Duroff, who was known to cut a guy down, looked at me and said, ‘Okay, Alexander, I’ll give you credit.’ [I guess] he believed my story! His foreman was flabbergasted. He said to me afterwards, ‘Nate Duroff never did that for
anyone.
’ But Nate was very, very helpful to me.”

Whatever goals you set for yourself, wherever you made up your mind to go, J.W. had always believed that straightforwardness, a good appearance, and a polite demeanor would serve you in good stead (“James W. Alexander,” wrote Walter Hurst in his 1963 music business advisory, “is a man who thinks . . . a man blessed with the ability to sing, the ability to organize, the ability to write songs, the ability to recognize talent [and] the ability to make friends”), and certainly his manner and his reputation served him well now. He set up a network of independent distributors (“I could tell whether I should go with a distributor just by Nate’s answer”) and settled on an attractive asymmetrical label design, with two green-and-yellow stripes radiating out from the center of the record and the credits in plain black against a white background. It was strictly functional in keeping with the company’s modest financial circumstances, but otherwise no expense was to be spared, no corners cut. Everything, J.W. insisted, was going to be first class all the way, even if the only way that could be accomplished was by the sweat of his brow.

“I think I had something I wanted to prove. I was all fired up. I’d go to the clubs at night, get home at maybe four or five in the morning, and a distributor would call and I would wake up: ‘SAR Records!’ I had Rediforms to do my billing, I didn’t have any kind of calculator, just sit on the floor with pencil and paper and do everything by hand.”

They were beginning to get some cuts on their songs, too. Jackie Wilson’s version of “I’ll Always Be in Love With You” was scheduled to come out on his next LP; the Hollywood Flames, an L.A. group with classic local r&b antecedents, had already recorded its own version of the song (as “Every Day Every Way”) for the Atlantic subsidiary Atco. Plus, they had gotten the A-side of Little Anthony and the Imperials’ latest single, “I’m All Right,” which Sam had fixed up for the group on a quick visit to New York at the conclusion of his supersonic tour.