The talent, the nobility and the triumph of Sam Cooke - his real legacy - is completely overshadowed in this film by the seediest aspects of his death. I thought this 'documentary' was downright exploitative. The killing was tragic and senseless enough without this needless, fanciful overlay of conspiracy. Had the motel manager been a pawn in some larger conspiracy with the prostitute, she certainly wouldn’t have given testimony that Sam burst in the room shouting, “Where’s the girl?” That testimony only helped explain Sam’s actions and implicate the prostitute as someone who had done him wrong. I think she rolled him, took off with his clothes, and when an angry, half-naked Sam stormed into the motel mamager’s office looking for the girl and his clothes, the manager had no clue what was going on and she shot him. Plus, the conspiracy would have hinged on the cooperation of the known prostitute Sam took to the motel that night.Īll that said, I do suspect the prositute lied when she claimed Sam tried to rape her. Even if one assumes Sam was somehow more of a threat to white America than other, more commercially successful black entertainers and businessmen, the notion that a group of mob-connected conspirators would eliminate him by having him shot and clubbed by an elderly, black, female motel manager is not just far-fetched, it’s absurd. Watch the trailer for ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke below.I don’t buy any of these wild theories that Sam had become too powerful in the music industry and because he was black he had to be murdered. The documentary, featuring Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson, Quincy Jones and other music greats, seeks to explore longstanding theories that Cooke’s influence in music, his refusal to be silent on civil rights issues and friendship with Malcolm X, made him a target. Klein, who went on to manage the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, ended up owning the rights to Cooke’s music after his death. By 1963, Cooke entered into a five-year deal with music executive Allen Klein, but he didn’t live long enough to reap the benefits.

He signed to RCA Records where he released the singles “Chain Gang” “Bring It On Home to Me,” “Twisting the Night Away” and more. Cooke also created a publishing and management company, Kags Music. Three years before he died, Cooke, his then manager, Roy Crain, and singer-songwriter J. T-Pain's Rendition Of Sam Cooke's 'Change Is Gonna Come' Is So Good It's Great

Sam cooke documentary