Hunter S. Thompson once proclaimed, “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway, where thieves and pimps roam free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side…”
Ask yourself, how does arguably the most famous African American man in the country, die in a seedy $3 a night motel on the “hoe stroll” in what was then called “Hustlerville” on Dec. 11, 1964 by accident? He was murdered and it was covered up, that’s how. Sam Cooke was then as he is today almost 48 years ago, the greatest Soul singer of all time. His influence on popular music, more importantly popular culture, cannot be denied. Sam’s catalogue has netted its owners over $100 million dollars since 1957.
Sam discovered or signed The Rolling Stones, Bobby Womack, Sonny and Cher, Lou Rawls, Johnnie Taylor just to name a few. He revolutionized the music business for African American performers with his move from gospel star to pop idol. He THOUGHT he owned his recordings, lyrics, and most importantly himself. He unfortunately found out too late that the very man he hired to recover lost royalties from his label, RCA, Allen Klein, would be the very man that had him removed from this earth – but not our hearts.
Klein, even after Sam, had the reputation of being so evil that in some circles he is credited as the person who broke apart the Beatles (The Walrus) and robbed The Rolling Stones. Sam had caught wind of Klein’s schemes to manipulate the books and give Klein a greater share of the profits of all of Sam’s enterprises. Klein once gifted Sam a Rolls Royce but upon further inspection, Klein actually had Sam pay for it unbeknownst to him.
Sam sought to fire Klein when the first opportunity arose, but Klein beat him to the punch literally. Klein bet Sam’s greatest personal weakness, women, would be the way for him to become the ultimate victor in the battle for 100 percent of Sam.
Klein actually felt Sam’s works were his because he worked so hard to make Sam a star and he needed them to fund his lavish lifestyle. Klein secretly hated Sam and loathed the fact that ALL women – no matter what color – were totally taken by him. Klein took advantage of the fact that in 1964, Los Angeles was very racist and very segregated. The head of the LAPD at the time was William Parker, who was very outspoken in his hatred of Blacks and Mexicans, Pop music, and believed in keeping the city divided by race. Just as it was portrayed in the movie L.A. Confidential, LAPD officers moonlighted doing other jobs, but still were technically on duty.
Klein had a young Asian prostitute named Elisa Boyer, who sometimes worked as an informant for LAPD, to entice Sam to come to her “place” for some fun. Sam had a total of $10,000 on him and was well known in Hollywood, so it would not been that big of a problem for him to get a room for a quick mix, but she somehow convinced him otherwise.
When Sam entered the room he was beat unmercifully by a mixture of mobbed up guys, also in Klein’s employ, and off duty police officers. Sam managed to escape for a second only to be caught by his assailants and the ultimately killed. The robbers stripped him naked and set his body up in the doorway of the motel office. They only placed his sport coat on his body as a way to go with the story that they had concocted with the prostitute and the hotel manager. The gang had the manager hit Sam’s lifeless body with a broom handle as away to say she was defending herself from a sex crazed madman, Sam.
Klein won. The mainstream press ate up the story of a drunk, borderline rapist, animal Sam attacking the two women. Klein got all the rights to Sam’s works and convinced Sam’s wife to let him be in charge of Sam’s legacy and he would take care of her bills. Meanwhile the scenario Klein masterminded has now become forever a huge chunk of the lore surrounding Sam. It’s a shame.
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