I suppose we ought to be grateful that he got to number one at all — and that he managed to enjoy the achievement while he was still alive as opposed to Otis Redding or Janis Joplin. Sure, it's a pity he didn't have four or five chart toppers as he surely deserved but black artists typically got short shrift, particularly back in pop's early years. But if it had to come down to one, did it really have to be this one?
Sam Cooke isn't normally listed among the greatest singles acts of all time but he belongs right up there with the likes of The Four Tops and ABBA. It is only when taking in his vast discography that you realise just how impressive it is. I'll sometimes think about "Chain Gang" or have "Wonderful World" stuck in my head or randomly hear "Bring In on Home to Me" on the radio but it seldom dawns on me that they were all written and performed by the same guy. For a person who only lived to the age of thirty-three, it feels like there's a lot more than just seven years' worth of recorded material behind him. And to think how much more he could have produced: it's quite easy to picture Cooke thriving in the funk and disco eras had he lived that long.
It's not as though "You Send Me" is a blot on Cooke's otherwise impeccable run of singles, it just isn't in the same league as what he eventually get round to recording. He had only just managed to extricate himself from gospel music so it wasn't as if he had the pop game down this early. The song wasn't even meant to be an A-side as his version of the George Gershwin classic "Summertime" seemed to be the odds on favourite to give him a crossover hit. Yet, DJ's preferred the flip side — something they seemed to do an awful lot back in those days — and that's how it became his first and only number one in North America.
While it was timely on the part of Cooke to record "Summertime" — there were a great deal of pop and jazz versions of Porgy and Bess including a pair of hugely popular and deeply influential releases by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis — his rendition is far too languid for the charts so they were right to opt for "You Send Me". Rather than being a bit of a downer, it has a relaxed and smooth vibe to it. Cooke's effortlessness was always one his strengths though it must be said that this is a far more impressive trait when it comes to something more challenging like "A Change Is Gonna Come" instead of this which is underwritten and kind of repetitive.
All that said, this is still Sam Cooke we're talking about so I shouldn't quibble too much. Maybe the real problem is that most of us will never experience his releases in real time: without all those brilliant future singles to spoil his early work, one could have appreciated the simplicity of "You Send Me" all the more. Plus, can you imagine what it must have been like to hear Cooke's voice on the radio for the first time back then? Yeah, there had been Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole before him but they had been there for older generations to bug out to. Had I been fourteen in 1957 I may well have flipped the first time I heard "You Send Me" too — and I might well rate it every bit as highly as "Chain Gang" or "Wonderful World".
Score: 7
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Can Con
The Canadian singles charts were joined by the ever present Paul Anka and The bloody Diamonds by a third homegrown act during the second week at the top for "You Send Me". Buddy Burke is someone I wasn't familiar with until earlier this week and now I can confidently say that there's a reason. Strange, though, that I had never heard about a Canadian Elvis which is clearly what Burke was doing his best to be. Just because he was doing his best, that doesn't mean it was good enough though. I'm happy for him that "That Big Old Moon" gave him a Top 50 hit but the record itself is the shits. And the wait for a genuinely good Canadian pop song continues...
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