60 years ago today, at RCA Studios in Hollywood, Sam Cooke records the seminal “A Change Is Gonna Come.” He was backed by a full string section, 5 vocalists, French horn, trumpet, 3 trombones, bass, percussion, piano, and drums played by Earl Palmer. See our 1/16/24 blog post for more on Earl:
It wasn’t Sam’s biggest hit, peaking at #31 on the Hot 100, but it is far and away his greatest composition and performance. The song was inspired by two specific events in Sam’s life. In Shreveport, Louisiana in October ’63, on his way to a Holiday Inn, he’d called ahead to reserve rooms. But when he arrived, the desk clerk told him there were no vacancies. Sam was livid, demanding to see the manager for an answer. He was persuaded to leave by his brother Charles. As they pulled away, they yelled insults and slammed the car horn repeatedly. When they arrived at the more welcoming Castle Motel in downtown, police were already there waiting, arresting them for disturbing the peace. The next day, United Press International reported on the incident with the headline ‘Negro Band Leader Held in Shreveport.’ It took until 2019 for Shreveport to express regret, when mayor Adrian Perkins apologized to Cooke’s family, and awarding a posthumous Key to the City to Sam.
The other event was Sam hearing “Blowin’ in the Wind” for the first time, right around the time of the Holiday Inn episode. He was incredibly moved by the song, and the fact that a song so poignant on racism had been written by a white man. He was also ashamed of himself. He’d felt the same things but had been reluctant to address them in a song, fearing he’d alienate his large white audience. Sam immediately added “Blowin’ in the Wind” to his live repertoire. After hearing Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Cooke claimed that “A Change Is Gonna Come” came to him in a dream.
He performed the song live for the first and last time on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson on February 7, 1964. His new manager, the infamous Allen Klein, loved the song so much that he urged Sam to perform it on the show, though Sam initially declined out of fear over the arrangement. Klein persuaded RCA Records to pay for a live string section to accompany him on the broadcast. The network didn’t archive the tape, and the performance was lost to history. He chose to never perform the song again due to the difficulty of the recorded arrangement, and the somber tone of the lyric. Bobby Womack was a protégé of Sam’s, and he told Cooke that the song sounded like death. He meant it as spooky more than deathly, but Sam heard it the same way, and never sang it again.
The recording was being prepped in early December ’64 for an official single release that month. The “I go to the movies” verse was edited out to make it radio-length ready. The civil rights movement had already embraced the song. On December 11, 1964, two weeks before the planed release, Sam was shot dead at the Hacienda Motel in South Central Los Angeles in a well-documented incident.
There have been some fine versions of the song over the years. Artists from a wide range of backgrounds have recorded it. Aretha, The Supremes, The Righteous Brothers, The Band, Solomon Burke, Billy Bragg, Al Green, Tina Turner, Gregg Allman, and Jeff Beck are just a very few. Bob Dylan performed it in tribute to Sam in 2004 at the Apollo Theater, introduced by Ossie Davis who’d introduced Dylan 43 years earlier at the March on Washington.
Two other versions stand out. The incomparable Neville Brothers recorded it on their Yellow Moon album in 1989:
Beyonce performed the song in Detroit in 2013, in tribute to the city itself that had only recently filed for bankruptcy:
Today’s Playlist is a SomethingIsHappening compendium of songs about change and transformation, in honor of this incredible composition:
Oh what the hell, here’s Dylan, June 7, 2004:
#SamCooke #AChangeIsGonnaCome #BobDylan #ApolloTheater #Beyonce #NevilleBrothers #Detroit #BlowinInTheWind
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