Netflix‘s music documentary series, ReMastered –which looks at the true story behind some legendary musicians – will examine the life of US soul singer Sam Cooke in its newest episode.
Due to air on 8 February, The Two Killings of Sam Cooke will re-examine the bizarre nature of Cooke’s death, the confusion in what really happened and the different theories people have for his murder in 1964.
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All about David Attenborough’s new documentary series
Who was Sam Cooke?
Cooke was known as “The King of Soul”, but he initially began life singing as part of gospel choirs and one in particular called The Soul Stirrers in 1951.
He started to get cross-over success in the charts from 1957, and for the next seven years he had 30 of his songs hit the top 40 charts. His biggest tracks were “A Change Is Gonna Come”, “Cupid”, “Wonderful World” and “Twistin’ the Night Away”.
In 1961, he started his own record label, SAR Records, and also played a big part in America’s civil rights movement, making a stand that music gigs should not be segregated.
How did he die?
This is where it all gets rather strange and complicated.
The official line is that he was murdered on 11 December 1964 by Bertha Franklin, the manager of The Hacienda motel in Los Angeles, and that it was self-defence, as Cooke had burst into her office and attacked her.
According to the police report, Franklin says Cooke – who checked into the motel earlier – broke into the office wearing just a jacket and shoe, demanding to know where a woman he had brought to the premises earlier had gone.
Franklin said Cooke became enraged when she couldn’t help him and he attacked her, pulling her to the floor. She then grabbed a gun and shot him in his torso.
The motel’s owner, Evelyn Carr, said she was on the phone to Franklin at the time and had heard everything and called the police.
Meanwhile, the woman Cooke had brought to The Hacienda – Elisa Boyer – had also called the police. She claims that Cooke had kidnapped her, and she feared he was going to rape her, so she ran away when he was in the bathroom, taking her clothes – and his – with her. She then tried and failed to get in to the manager’s office and then called the police.
The inconsistencies
There were inconsistencies in Boyer’s account of the evening – and according to diners at Martoni’s restaurant, where Cooke and Boyer had dined earlier that evening – and it was suggested that she had gone back to his hotel with him in an attempt to rob him, which is why she took all of his clothes.
Conspiracy theory?
The singer Etta James questioned the official version of events when she saw Cooke’s body before his funeral. She wrote that the injuries she observed were well beyond the account of Cooke having fought Franklin alone. James at the time said Cooke was so badly beaten that “his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled.”
Several of Cooke’s friends and family members have rejected Boyer, Franklin and Carr’s versions of events and have suggested there was something bigger and darker at play.They believe that there was a conspiracy to murder Cooke, and that the murder took place in a completely different way to what the court accepted happened.
In the film, it’s reported that the Mafia weren’t happy when Cooke brushed them off when they tried to work their way into his business affairs, the KKK were furious when Cooke was the only person of colour on an all-white Dick Clark show and also, Cooke was planning to confront his manager, Allen Klein, about where all his earnings had been disappearing to.
However, the court ruled that the original version of events was what happened, Franklin was never charged and the police closed the case on the inquiry.
His funeral
Cooke’s first funeral was held on 18 December in Chicago and 200,000 fans lined up for more than four city blocks to view his body.
Afterwards, his body was flown back to Los Angeles for a second service, at the Mount Sinai Baptist Church on 19 and Ray Charles performed The Angels Keep Watching Over Me”
He was then buried inForest Lawn Memorial Park CemeteryinGlendale, California.
