Sam Cooke was shot and killed in what police ruled a 'justifiable homicide,' but those closest to him called foul play.
On Dec. 11, 1964, singer Sam Cooke burst into the main office of the Hacienda Motel in El Segundo outside Los Angeles. He was in nothing but a jacket and one shoe.
“A Change Is Gonna Come” was written in 1963 and released in 1964. His single became the B-side of “Shake.” J.W. Alexander, a friend of Cooke, whom he asked to listen to his song, liked the song but warned Cooke that it’s not going to sell. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” is a powerful and hopeful piece about the struggle for civil rights in America. Written in late 1963, during a tumultuous period in the Civil Rights Movement, the song’s lyrics and its soaring symphonic music capture the feelings of longing and hope for an end to segregation. I own no rights to this song or these photos. Don't penalize me. It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die Cos I don't know what's out there beyond the sky It's been a long, a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will I go to the movie And I go down town somebody keep telling me don't hang around Its been along time coming But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.
Cooke demanded that the motel manager tell him where the young woman he’d arrived at the motel with had gone. The shouting became physical and, afraid for her life, the motel manager pulled a gun and fired three shots at the singer.
At least, that is the story that the motel manager later told the LAPD. The shooting was ruled a “justifiable homicide.”
Getty ImagesCooke’s body is removed from the office of the motel. He was reportedly wearing just a top coat and one shoe.
But as those closest to him learned more about Sam Cooke’s death, they questioned the official report. Even decades later, some refuse to accept the official story.
What really happened that December night at the Hacienda Motel?
Who Was Sam Cooke?
Sam Cooke began his musical career as a gospel singer. He was, after all, the son of a Baptist minister.
Young Cooke craved an audience. His brother, L.C., recalled Cooke lining up popsicle sticks and saying to him, “This is my audience, see? I’m gonna sing to these sticks.”
He was just seven years old at the time when he voiced his life’s ambition, “I’m gonna sing, and I’m going to make me a lot of money.”
As a teenager, Cooke joined a gospel group called the Soul Stirrers and they signed onto the label Specialty Records. Cooke made an impression with this label and by his mid-20s, had earned the moniker King of Soul.
RCA Victor Records/Wikimedia CommonsSam Cooke is largely regarded as the king of soul and R&B.
His chart-topping hits included “You Send Me” (1957), “Chain Gang” (1960), and “Cupid” (1961), all of which transformed him into a star. But Cooke wasn’t just a performer — he also wrote all of his hit songs.
By 1964, the year Sam Cooke died, the singer had founded his own record label and publishing company. And just as he’d promised his brother, Cooke had become a successful, influential musician.
What Happened The Night Before Sam Cooke Died
On Dec. 10, 1964, Sam Cooke spent the evening in Martoni’s Italian restaurant, a Hollywood hot spot. Cooke was a 33-year-old star with a new hit album and he was instantly recognizable to many at the restaurant.
That evening, Cooke wandered away from dinner with his producer to visit the bar where he bought drinks for friends in the music business, apparently flashing thousands in cash.
While chatting, Cooke caught the eye of 22-year-old Elisa Boyer. A few hours later, the pair hopped into Cooke’s red Ferrari and headed down toward El Segundo.
Getty ImagesElisa Boyer awaits questioning at police headquarters in Los Angeles following Sam Cooke’s death.
Cooke and Boyer ended up at the Hacienda Motel around 2 a.m. Known for its $3-an-hour rates, the motel catered to short-term visitors.
At the desk, Cooke asked for a room under his own name. Seeing Boyer in the car, the motel manager, Bertha Franklin, told the singer he’d need to sign in as Mr. and Mrs.
Within the hour, Sam Cooke was dead.
How Did Cooke Die At The Hacienda Motel?
According to Elisa Boyer, Sam Cooke forced her into their room at the Hacienda Motel. She reportedly asked the singer to take her home, instead, he rented the room and pinned her to the bed.
“I knew he was going to rape me,” Boyer told police.
In the motel room, Boyer tried to escape through the bathroom but found the window painted shut. When she left the bathroom, Boyer found Cooke undressed on the bed. She waited until he went to the bathroom and then, wearing just her slip, Boyer grabbed a pile of clothes and fled.
A block away, Boyer pulled on her clothes, abandoning Cooke’s shirt and pants on the ground. When Sam Cooke left the bathroom he found his clothes gone. Wearing a sports jacket and a single shoe, Cooke pounded on the door of the motel office where Bertha Franklin worked.
Bettmann/CORBISMrs. Bertha Franklin claimed that she had been warned previously on the telephone by another motel resident that there was a prowler on the premises.
“Is the girl in there?” Cooke yelled.
Franklin later told police that Cooke rammed down the door and charged into the office. “Where is the girl?” Cooke demanded as he grabbed Franklin by the wrist.
As the singer demanded answers, Franklin tried to push him away, even kicked him. Then, Franklin grabbed a pistol. “I shot… at close range… three times,” Franklin told police.
The first two shots missed. But the third bullet hit the singer in the chest. He fell back, exclaiming, “Lady, you shot me.”
Those were Sam Cooke’s last words.
Investigating The ‘Justifiable Homicide’
When police arrived at the scene of the shooting, they found the singer dead. Within a week of Sam Cooke’s death, the police declared the shooting a “justifiable homicide.” Both Boyer and Franklin both spoke at the coroner’s inquest where Cooke’s lawyer was reportedly only allowed to ask a single question.
The evidence showed that Cooke’s blood-alcohol level was 0.16. His credit cards were gone, but he had over $100 in cash in his sports jacket, leading the police to conclude that Cooke hadn’t faced a robbery attempt.
To the police, it was an open and shut case, but Cooke’s friends and supporters wondered if there was more to the story.
Getty ImagesBoyer testifies in disguise during the coroner’s inquest.
At Cooke’s open-casket funeral, friends like Etta James and Muhammad Ali were shocked to find Cooke’s body badly beaten. James didn’t see how motel manager Franklin could have caused such injuries.
“His head was nearly separated from his shoulders,” James wrote. “His hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled.”
A month later, police arrested Elisa Boyer for prostitution. In 1979, she was found guilty of the second-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend. Based on this record, some posit that Boyer had attempted to rob Cooke and it went horribly awry.
Another theory suggested that Cooke’s death was planned and staged by his enemies. By the 1960s, Cooke had become a prominent voice in the civil rights movement and frequently ruffled the feathers of bigots when he refused to perform at segregated venues.
Getty ImagesThrongs gathered to mourn Sam Cooke’s death.
Cooke’s obituary in The New York Times even noted his 1963 arrest for trying to register at a “whites only” motel in Louisiana.
As one of Cooke’s friends declared, “He was just getting too big for his britches for a suntanned man.”
Meanwhile, in Chicago and Los Angeles, 200,000 fans lined the streets to mourn Sam Cooke’s death. Ray Charles performed at his funeral and his posthumous hit “A Change is Gonna Come” became the anthem of the civil rights movement.
After reading about the controversial circumstances surrounding Sam Cooke’s death, check out more strange deaths of other famous people. Then, remember the 1960s in these powerful photos of the civil rights movement.
Sam Cooke, smiling
As promised, we’ve embarked on a visit to three “spookily existential posthumous hits”. Last week we visited Otis Redding, an artist I’m still learning to fully appreciate, and ‘(Sitting on) The Dock of a Bay’, which he recorded 18 days before he was killed.
This week, we’re going to pay homage to an artist I’ve long held in the highest esteem, Sam Cooke, and to his universally acclaimed Civil Rights anthem ‘A Change is Gonna Come’, recorded a year before his death but released only posthumously.
We’ve written several times about Sam Cooke (1931-1964) – about his gospel roots, his crossover to rhythm and blues (for example, SoTW 048, ‘Bring It on Home to Me’); his success as a genteel creator of pop hits (SoTW 136, ‘Wonderful World’); and his incredible talent as a singer (SoTW 120, ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’).
In 1963, Cooke was at the top of his game–hits galore, successful nightclub and concert gigs, and a major-league shmuck manager (Allen Klein, later of Beatles infamy), the highest-earning black entertainer in the world. But while on tour (which he did non-stop to keep away from his crumbling marriage), his 18 month old son, Vincent, drowned in their front yard pool. Sam blamed Mrs Barbara Cooke, and sank into depression, requesting that no one wear black to the child’s funeral.
According to his biographer, Cooke had been profoundly affected by Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ (a hit at the time for Peter, Paul and Mary), moved that such a poignant song about racism in America could come from someone who was not black. While on tour in May 1963, and after speaking with sit-in demonstrators in Durham, North Carolina following a concert, Cooke returned to his tour bus and wrote the first draft of what would become “A Change Is Gonna Come”. Then in October 1963, he was arrested and thrown in jail after refusing to be turned away from a Shreveport, La., hotel which had initially accepted his reservation.
Scene of the crime (the one shoe not visible)
He recorded ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ on December 21, 1963 (arrangement by René Hall), a month after Kennedy’s assassination. But Klein kept it under wraps for a year, till it was finally released as the B-side of a vibrant single, ‘Shake’ (which we heard last week in Otis Redding’s version). The original version of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ was shortened by 30 seconds for the single, deleting the most explicitly anti-segregation verse: I go to the movie and I go downtown/Somebody keep telling me, “Don’t hang around”/It’s been a long, a long time coming/But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.
Apparently Sam wasn’t finished twisting the night away, because on December 11, 1964, he took a hooker to his motel room. When he stumbled into the bathroom (highly intoxicated), she grabbed her clothes, his clothes and his cash and ran off. She either did or didn’t stop in the motel office, but Sam was convinced she was hiding there. He barged in, clad in the only clothes Ms Elisa Boyer had left (a sport jacket and one shoe). He vociferously demanded an explanation from the manager, Ms Bertha Franklin. There was a struggle, during which Ms Boyer shot and killed Cooke. The verdict was justifiable homicide. Of course, other versions are rife, including even a conspiracy theory. Cooke was 33.
‘A Change is Gonna Come’ was only a moderate hit at the time, but it was quickly adopted as an anthem by the Civil Rights movement, recorded and performed by everyone. Its status continues to grow today, despite the fact that Allen Klein refuses to allow the use of the original. Rolling Stone ranked it #12 in its list of 500 greatest songs, and ‘the Greatest Soul Song Ever’.
Sam Cooke Change Gonna
It was selected by the Library of Congress as one of twenty-five selected recordings for the National Recording Registry. Here’s a nice NRP program on the song, including Aretha Franklin saying “Sam Cooke, bar none, was one of the greatest singers of all time.” Here’s Aretha’s own very beautiful version of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’. Here’s another very gospel treatment by Patti LaBelle.
Miss Kentuckey, Djuan Trent
Sam Cooke Change Gonna Come
The song has had more cover versions than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill, so we’ll just give you a little sampling. Here’s Otis Redding. Here’s Aaron Neville. Here are The Righteous Brothers. Here’s Tina Turner. Here’s Bob Dylan (how’s that for irony?–the wheel’s still in spin), and here’s The Band. Here’s James Taylor’s version, first time ever on the internet.
Here’s Seal. He tied his cover of the song to Barack Obama’s statement in his 2008 victory speech “change has come to America.” Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi performed this song at President Obama’s inauguration celebration. In case you didn’t notice, she’s black and he’s white and they’re both EQUAL-ly soulful and passionate. Gee, do you think there might be a message hiding there?
‘A Change is Gonna Come’ was performed in the 2011 Miss America Pageant by Miss Kentucky, Djuan Trent, during which she maintained that her grandparents wrote the song. It was even performed in the finals of American Idol by Adam Lambert, provoking “ervin” of Indianapolis to write: “when i first heard this song it was on “American Idol” i really think that this song has alot of meaning. i started to cry because i felt where the song was coming from. just the title made me think. the song makes me think. this song is whats hot i would put this on my mp3 player”
But it’s not Sam’s fault that ervin was inspired to think (and to cry). It’s enough to make you think that perhaps Allen Klein had the right idea, to keep the song under wraps, because ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ really is too noble to be performed on American Idol. But it’s in the public domain, and we’ll just have to live with that. Because we don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky. And because we need music like this to remind us just how difficult it is for any man, black or white or plaid, to maintain his dignity in this world.
Sam Cooke, not smiling
I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I’ve been running ever since
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
It’s been too hard living but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me, “Don’t hang around”
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
Then I go to my brother
And I say, “Brother, help me please”
But he winds up knockin’ me
Back down on my knees
Oh there been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.