159 “How come cullud girls would take on so”: Nat D. Williams, “Down on Beale: ‘Pied Piper’ Presley,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 22, 1956.
160 “I’ve got all of your records”: Keyes, Du-Wop, p. 60.
160 “Dear Art,” Bill Cook wrote: Bill Cook to Art Rupe, January 6, 1957.
160 “Hi Bill,” Bumps responded: Bumps Blackwell to Bill Cook, January 18, 1957.
161 “Dear Mr. Rupe,” he wrote from Detroit: J.W. Alexander to Art Rupe, January 22, 1957; Rupe’s reply of January 24, and J.W.’s subsequent response, are all in the Specialty archives, as is Bumps’ January 4, 1957, letter to Kylo Turner.
162 “just dumb and naive”: Art Rupe quoted in Billy Vera’s notes to The Specialty Story (Specialty 4412), p. 36.
162 He had checked up on Bumps’ credentials: Responses to his inquiries from both the Cornish School and the Office of the Registrar at the University of Washington on September 26 and September 27, 1956, respectively, are housed in the Specialty archives. They show that Bumps studied theory, harmony, and piano at the Cornish School, mostly as a private student, over a period of roughly eighteen months. There was no record of attendance at the University of Washington.
162 He had stated emphatically: Handwritten memo by Art Rupe, ca. April 1, 1956.
163 “creatures of the Creator [with no] barrier”: Art Rupe to Brother Joe May, April 30, 1951.
163 “you know that we are in your corner”: Art Rupe to Brother Joe May, April 12, 1950.
163 he was “an intense guy”: “Salient points from ANR’s [Arthur N. Rupe’s] Talk, from tape,” n.d., Specialty archives. Rupe spoke of Sam as an “enigma” and “puzzle” in a BBC interview, and in similar terms to me.
164 he pointed to a picture of Harry Belafonte: Wolff, You Send Me, p. 132. Paul Foster spoke more on this subject in his 1984 interview with Lee Hildebrand.
164 To Morgan Babb . . . he declared: BBC interview with Morgan Babb.
164 to others, like Oakland piano and organ player Faidest Wagoner: Lee Hildebrand interview with Faidest Wagoner.
164 a “personable debut”: Billboard, March 9, 1957. In this same issue, there is extensive discussion in Ren Grevatt’s column, “On the Beat,” of the “integration of the tastes of the majority into the minority,” in other words, the merging of the r&b and pop markets.
166 “If this [record] doesn’t make it”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
167 “Hi Bumbs”: The letter is undated but clearly was written in the week preceding May 3.
168 a song he had been trying to get L.C. to record for Vee Jay: Interview with L.C. Cooke; L.C. said that Vee Jay a&r head Ewart Abner had no use for the song.
168 “I hit the ceiling”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
168 Crain telegrammed Art: S.R. Crain to Art Rupe, May 3, 1957.
169 Things clearly must have come to a head: Both Charles and L.C. Cooke and Leroy Crume all spoke to me about Sam’s dissatisfaction with his songwriter’s royalties. Art Rupe’s February 16, 1956, letter to Crain alludes obliquely at least to the potential for misunderstanding. Daniel Wolff wrote about the group vote in You Send Me, p. 122, undoubtedly on the testimony of his coauthor Crain.
169 In the end, Sam got his way: Wolff wrote that Sam got his own songwriter’s contract, presumably in February 1956, but I could find no evidence of this in the Specialty archives. I think there’s little question, though, that an informal understanding at least was reached.
169 “I hated Bumps”: Dred Scott Keyes interview with S.R. Crain, 1996.
170 he was “thinking about going out for himself”: Lee Hildebrand interview with Paul Foster, 1984.
170 “He asked my opinion”: Terry Gross interview with S.R. Crain, Fresh Air, National Public Radio, March 23, 1995.
170 His father told him he owed no loyalty to the Soul Stirrers: Dred Scott Keyes interview with Reverend Charles Cook, 1995; Reverend Cook at the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, 1986.
170 He had come to a parting of the ways: In Sam’s initial filing for divorce, in November 1957, the date of separation is listed as May 24, 1957.
HOW HE CROSSED OVER
171 the escalating problems . . . with Little Richard: “He was very insincere in my opinion,” Rupe told the BBC. According to Rupe, Little Richard was converted to the Seventh Day Adventist faith by former Specialty artist Joe Lutcher, who convinced Richard that it was “evil to sing pop.” “As early as June 1957,” Rob Finnis wrote in the notes to Little Richard: The Specialty Sessions (Specialty 8508), p. 15, “Richard hinted to reporters that he was planning to become an evangelist.” But part of Art continued to wonder if it wasn’t some kind of business or negotiating ploy.
171 Art had gone over the ground: Rupe expressed this to me and went into it further in Billy Vera’s notes to The Specialty Story (Specialty 4412).
172 Sam had been staying: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
172 Clifton (“Clif”) White: I have spelled Clif’s first name in this way because he made the point very strongly to me that there was no second f in Clifton.
173 “The girls were nearly sitting out in the hall”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
173 The first song they did, “You Send Me”: Clif White was very clear on the order of the songs in my interviews with him.
174 Sam signed a new contract . . . with a 1 percent royalty: A 1 percent royalty amounted to a penny a single on 90 percent of all records sold, which by standard record company practice allowed for a 10 percent dispensation of “free goods” to DJs and other interested parties. If a million singles were sold, in other words, income for the recording artist at that 1 percent rate would come to $9,000.
174 Sam also got a $400 advance: Royalty statement, June 30, 1957.
174 The songwriter’s agreement stipulated that he would split his one-penny-per-side mechanical royalty: Royalty statements, December 31, 1957, and June 30, 1958. The second is drawn up with instructions not to pay out any money until the conclusion of the lawsuit in which Rupe, Sam, Bumps, and Keen Records were by then embroiled. But it includes a calculation of Sam’s royalties at $.005 per side along with an alternate statement for L.C. Cooke at $.02 per side for L.C. and/or his publisher, should the court decide that he, and not Sam, had written the pop songs by Sam that Specialty had released. Little Richard had a similar deal, with Venice taking a 50 percent cut-in on his writer’s share (see Charles White, The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock, pp. 57-59).
175 The session was in full swing: The details of the session itself are based primarily on interviews with Art Rupe, Clif White, Harold Battiste, J.W. Alexander, Steve Propes’ 1987 interview with René Hall, and the Bumps Blackwell interview in the Specialty archives. The documents that detail the legal outcome of the case are in the Specialty archives.
176 They were on the third or fourth take of [“Summertime”]: The order of the songs remains in dispute in the accounts of the various participants. Bumps, however, was adamant that they had completed “You Send Me” before Art walked in, and Rupe’s remark to René Hall about the arrangement of “Summertime” tends to bear him out.
176 “something new in the creative world”: Steve Propes interview with René Hall.
176 he launched . . . into a tirade: In addition to the sources listed above, see Stuart Colman, “The Many Sides of René Hall,” New Kommotion 25, 1980, which has a good description by René of the tirade.
176 “You’re going to try and turn everything into Billy Ward’s Dominoes”: This is from a BBC interview with René Hall.
176 “when I woke up, I had a different concept of the song”: Michael Ochs and Ed Pearl interview with Bumps Blackwell, 1981.
177 “the classical frosting on the cake”: Steve Propes interview with René Hall.
177 Sam . . . “just wanted to quit”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
177 they finished the session: In
Bumps’ interview in the Specialty archives, he has Art Rupe staying around and getting them to change their approach to Sam’s “You Were Made For Me,” with René supplying “that little jig beat” that Art liked so much on guitar. In Rupe’s recollection, there was no question that he stayed till the end. AFM records show the session running half an hour overtime, going from 1:30 to 5 P.M.
177 “the ill feeling that was created by me critizing the session”: In His Own Words: Art Rupe—The Story of Specialty Records (Ace CD 542).
178 “I began to feel that Bumps was functioning [more] as Sam’s manager”: This comes from Art Rupe’s faxed communications to me. In notes from a telephone discussion with Little Richard on August 22, 1956, Rupe remarked with respect to Bumps’ undependability: “He told Richard he wanted to start his own record company.” Rupe forced Bumps to give up managing Richard not long afterward over that same question of loyalty.
178 an almost naked, covetous desire “for bread pure and simple”: This is from “Salient points from ANR’s [Arthur N. Rupe’s] Talk, from tape,” n.d., Specialty archives, but Art expressed the same sentiments on many other occasions, including in his faxed communications to me.
178 “Art just assumed he was superior”: Bill Millar interview with Sonny Knight, 1981.
179 “I just felt, I’m not going to fool with these people”: In His Own Words: Art Rupe—The Story of Specialty Records.
179 “I know I owe you money”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
179 “I knew I had ten thousand dollars coming”: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives. Bumps went on to speculate that the total he was owed may have been closer to $50,000 (“In court I found out I had [actually] given up fifty thousand, which I didn’t know at the time”), but I think he was more on track here.
180 “I figured, well, this stuff’ll sell maybe a hundred, a hundred fifty thousand”: In His Own Words: Art Rupe—The Story of Specialty Records.
180 he never told his wife: Bumps Blackwell interview, Specialty archives.
180 René told him about a businessman: Steve Propes interview with René Hall. Further information on the earliest inception of Keen Records comes from my interviews with Art Foxall, Bob Keane, J.W. Alexander, and John Siamas Jr.
181 The deal . . . put Bumps in charge: John Siamas Jr. specifically recalled the gospel component, which would explain J.W. Alexander’s otherwise anomalous presence.
182 Bumps came out to the house for the first time: Bumps estimated the deal to have been made June 15 in a later lawsuit against the company.
182 They agreed on terms similar to Bumps’ arrangement: The terms were spelled out in Bob Keane’s June 8, 1958, telephone conversation with Art Rupe (annotated in the Specialty archives) and in Bumps’ 1960 lawsuit.
183 a name for the label: According to Bumps Blackwell in part 2 of Michael Watts‘ Melody Maker profile, September 2, 1972, John Siamas Jr. came up with the name when he said, “It’s keen, Dad.”
183 The corporation had four principal investors: As with so many financial matters for which no written records have surfaced, this is subject to interpretation. My account largely follows John Siamas Jr.’s recollection of the financial arrangements, along with Bob Keane’s vivid sense of exclusion from what he understood his role in the company to be. With respect to John Siamas’ uncles Andy and Paul Karras, there is some discrepancy in the spelling of the family name, but John Siamas Jr. says this is the correct spelling.
183 Sam spent the summer on the sofa: Information on Sam’s two months of anxious waiting, as well as on his apprenticeship to Bumps and the kind treatment he received from him, comes largely from interviews with Rip Spencer and L.C. Cooke, in addition to Bumps’ own interviews.
185 the burgeoning L.A. r&b community: Apart from Rip Spencer’s patient elucidation of both the history and the spirit of the scene, historical perspective comes primarily from Steve Propes and Galen Gart, L.A. R&B Vocal Groups 1945-1965; Mitch Rosalsky, Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop Vocal Groups; and Bill Millar, The Coasters, pp. 86ff.
186 “he was like a big brother to all of us”: Information and quotes on Jesse Belvin come primarily from Jim Dawson liner notes for the 1986 LP Hang Your Tears Out to Dry (Earth Angel JD-900); also Ray Topping liners for the 1991 CD Goodnight My Love (Ace 336).
186 “I’ll bring Hollywood to the blacks”: Tom Reed, The Black Music History of Los Angeles—Its Roots: A Classical Pictorial History of Black Music in Los Angeles from 1920-1970, p. 78.
187 “I could break a record”: Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg, as told to Jim Dawson, “Huggy Boy: The Voice of Dolphin’s of Hollywood,” Juke Blues 17.
188 “a self-sufficient community with two black-owned newspapers”: Morris Newman, “New Riffs for a Street Linked to Jazz,” New York Times, March 23, 1997.
188 Sam took acting lessons: Sam spoke of his acting training in interviews with the Amsterdam News, December 21, 1957, and the Chicago Defender, October 25, 1958, and it is referred to in the program book for the Howard Miller-promoted show at the Chicago Opera House in December.
188 he added a letter to his last name: Art Rupe, in his remarks on the Soul Stirrers in the Specialty archives, says Bumps Blackwell gave Sam the e. Bob Keane took credit for it in his conversation with me and said it was “for class.” Bumps said he suggested it to give Sam an even number of letters between his two names in Daniel Wolff, with S. R. Crain, Clifton White, and G. David Tenenbaum, You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke, p. 153. Both L.C. Cooke and his sister Agnes scoffed at the idea that Sam would care about the number of letters in his name. Sam signed his contract on September 7 with his still-legal name of “Cook.”
188 Harry Belafonte . . . was reported to be looking at a $1 million gross: Amsterdam News, August 3, 1957.
189 Specialty [would] be losing “a lot of [its] spiritual artists”: Sister Wynona Carr to Art Rupe, July 18, 1957.
189 He had acetates cut: Art Rupe specifies the date as July 29 in handwritten notes for his lawsuit against Sam and Keen.
189 Bumps jollied him along with paternal good humor: The tone is described by L.C. Cooke and Rip Spencer. Bumps liked to say (particularly in the interview housed in the Specialty archives) that he spent the entire summer recording Sam, searching in vain for a commercial hit, then, “three months later,” suddenly recollected the two sides he had cut for Specialty. However, not only is there no record of any of these recording sessions with Sam, but Bumps, in fact, started distributing acetates for the single within a month of his arrival at Keen, then had the record mastered on August 28, prior to which there was no record company. Not to mention the fact that it is inconceivable that he would have forgotten something in which he believed so strongly and for which he had paid so dearly.
189 The phone lines of Hamilton’s booking agency: Los Angeles Sentinel, July 25, 1957.
190 The Soul Stirrers themselves were beginning to wonder: The Soul Stirrers’ situation was detailed in my interviews with Leroy Crume, Lee Hildebrand’s interview with Paul Foster, and Lee Hildebrand and Opal Louis Nations’ liner notes for the 1993 Soul Stirrers CD, Heaven Is My Home (Specialty 7040).
190 Little Johnny Jones, the lead singer of the Swanee Quintet: Biographical information on Little Johnny Jones is primarily from Opal Louis Nations’ liners to a 1996 release, Let’s Go Back to God, by Little Johnny Jones and the Johnny Jones Singers (Nashboro 4535).
190 The Soul Stirrers, “[he] told disappointed Atlanta gospel music lovers”: Marion E. Jackson, “Soul Stirrers Vow to Carry On in Gospel Music Field,” Atlanta Daily World, July 16, 1957.
191 Crume had gone to see him: According to Crume, the Stirrers approached the QCs’ co-lead, Spencer Taylor, first, but Spencer said he couldn’t join them until he had fulfilled a week’s worth of scheduled QC engagements. When the group went to Johnnie Taylor, he was obviously burdened by no such constraint. Paul Foster, in his 1981 interview with Ray Funk, expressed his own reservation
s about Johnnie Taylor, which included sending him back to Chicago to learn a little humility shortly after he joined.
191 the Big Gospel Cavalcade: Amsterdam News, August 3, 1957, news item, and Jesse H. Walker, “Gospel Singing on the Move as Package Show Heads South,” August 17; also “Singing for Sinners,” Newsweek, September 2, 1957.
193 he lacked brains, talent, trustworthiness: “Excerpts from shorthand notes, Bob Keane telephone conversation, Sunday, June 8, 1958,” Specialty archives.
193 Bob spoke with Andy Karras: From speaking with John Siamas Jr. and Bob Keane, and from other interviews of Keane’s (including Howard DeWitt, “Bob Keane: The Oracle of Del-Fi Records,” Blue Suede News 34, and Jim Powers, “Del-Fi Records,” Goldmine, May 7, 1999; also Steve Propes’ interview with Keane, 1984), this is my best understanding of the situation. Keane said, in his June 8, 1958, telephone conversation with Art Rupe, that he severed relations with Siamas on September 6 (a Friday). With regard to financial specifics, much testimony has been offered, but, perhaps understandably, I’m not sure how much light has been shed. The crux of the problem, clearly, is over the voice of the verb “owed.” Bob Keane felt that he was owed something substantial; John Siamas felt just as strongly that Bob Keane owed the company something more than the investment of his labor. In the end the argument comes down to the usual misunderstanding over the placement of a decimal point, or several.
194 Bob Keane left the company . . . with a plan to start his own label: He did, approximately three months later, calling it Del-Fi after the Greek oracle at Delphi, who customarily spoke in riddles. Within a year he had had a huge double-sided pop hit with Ritchie Valens’ “Donna” and “La Bamba.”
194 Sam . . . laid down three tunes: The tape box specifies songs and date.
194 his 10 percent manager’s cut: “Excerpts from shorthand notes, Bob Keane telephone conversation, Sunday, June 8, 1958,” Specialty archives.
Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke Page 85
