Customer Reviews

Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Although 'Dream Boogie' is long and exhaustive with research, it dwells on details and the reader is apt to miss out on the full picture as Guralnick has. It lacks the emotional depth of other biographies and is padded with cultural touchstones that did not directly affect Sam Cooke, but are not mainstream enough to take us there. It is also fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies - for example, late in his career Sam played at Comiskey Park, not Wrigley Field, and after being told that his wife had her tubes tied, we learn that after his death she has another child with his protegee Bobby Womack, but no mention of surgery is made.

Despite the fascinating life (and death) of Sam Cooke, Peter Guralnick dropped the ball; he is more a researcher than a writer and does better capturing the letter than the spirit of the story. He gives inordinate ink to the adventures and accounts of groupies and minor hangers-on than more prominent sources (such as Muhammad Ali and James Brown) who are also still alive.

One oft-repeated tale is that of the joyously drunken recording of 'Bring it on Home to Me,' famously recounted in Daniel Wolff's superior Sam Cooke biography 'You Send Me.' In 'Dream Boogie,' there is no mention of the excitement and electricity surrounding this recording session. Although Guralnick might have wanted to avoid repeating the story in favor of original research, he misses out on the heart and soul of what Sam Cooke was all about.

I think some of the previous reviewers missed the point a little bit.

Dream Boogie is an intelligent read that leaves no stone unturned in chronicling Sam Cooke's entire life and career. Every session, every tour, and every release is discussed, and if you're a fan of the man's music, as opposed to simply being attracted to the sensational elements of his life that have been beaten into the ground over the past 40+ years, you will enjoy this book immensely. Guralnick is clearly a student of Cooke's music, and provides context and details about that music that had never been revealed prior to the release of the book.

If you want to find out what Sam Cooke's innermost thoughts and feelings were, you are going to be disappointed, because as the book makes pains to reveal, Cooke had demons that he never fully revealed to even his closest friends or family. Everyone of interest that was ever associated with Cooke was interviewed in a thorough fashion by Guralnick (who, by the way, also interviewed Cooke himself prior to his death), and if none of them could crack Cooke's complex nature, you can hardly expect Guralnick to do so either.

My one minor quarrel with the book is that Guralnick, after going to tremendous lengths to introduce us to Cooke inner-circle figures like Bobby Womack, J.W. Alexander, and Allen Klein, doesn't quite tie up all the loose ends associated with these people that followed Cooke's demise. For instance, I thought Guralnick could have told us that Womack went on to achieve significant solo success, or that he divorced Cooke's ex-wife in 1970, that Alexander passed away in 1996, etc. But these are just tangential facts. The facts that most readers should want, aka the ones involving Sam Cooke, are all here.

Recommended.

This book was exhausting - and I am an avid reader. I labored to get thru it. Instead of focusing on WHO Sam was, the book is littered with technical details of his songs, publishing, recording sessions, tours, and the like. The only personality in this book is Barbara - her story was interwoven throughout the book, like a secondary plot. To be honest - it kept me reading, she did not sugarcoat at ALL. There were some input from Sam's family, JW Alexander, Bobby Womack and later Allen Klein - but is was not as consistant to me.

There were instances in this book, where I thought the author was not objective in his writing. Times where I had to go back over a paragraph to see if he was quoting someone, or if that was his personal opinion. Also like another poster mentioned, there were details about his relationship with Allen Klein that were left out. This book left me with more questions than answers, and I too would have wanted to know what became of his family, years later. What of the "outside" children? What about his daughters? Are they getting any money at all from Sam's work?

If you want a good read about Mr Cooke, I will suggest "You Send Me, The Life and Times of Sam Cooke" by Daniel Wolff. That book will have you feeling like you were there, and not like an outsider looking in, as in this book.

When I had first heard of Dream Boogie, a 700-page biography of the late Sam Cooke, I was ecstatic. Up until that point, I had only known of one other biography of Sam Cooke - You Send Me, which I haven't gotten around to reading. I eagerly bought a copy of the book from my local Barnes & Noble, expecting an enormous gem of truth about Sam, that would prove to be both through and entertaining. For readers of this review, there is now a third Sam Cooke biography, written by Erik Greene entitled: "Our Uncle Sam". Who is Erik Greene, you may ask? He's Sam's great nephew.

But let us return to Dream Boogie. Peter Guralnick is known as the definitive biographer of Sam Cooke, having written liner notes for digitally-remastered CDs and much more. Peter Guralnick worked on writing and gathering the materials for Dream Boogie for more than fifteen years. Therefore, one might well assume that he would write an enormous gem of truth that proved to be both through and entertaining.

Let us begin with the good points of this 700-page biography. Peter Guralnick chose to interview a large portion of the Sam Cooke family, something Daniel Wolff did not do. Naturally, Erik Greene did. Guralnick includes commentary from his father, his brothers, his sisters, his business associates, his close friends, and most importantly, his widow. Barbara Cooke, ever since the death of her husband, has never conducted any interviews regarding Sam for the past forty years. Naturally, she provides a unique but also a brutally honest commentary regarding her life and Sam's. However, Guralnick does not deviate from his course - he is still extremely through (to say the least) in the actual history of Sam's life. He doesn't miss a single thing.

In my opinion, there is a flaw to this. In the art of writing, if you're too through with a subject, you will bog the reader down immensely. Guralnick gets an A+ on this one. Throughout the 700-page biography, Guralnick succeeds in providing the reader with so very much information that is indeed interesting, but not important to the overall history of Sam. He also succeeds in doing the exact opposite over the more important and memorable aspects of Sam's life. In the 1950s, he stood up against the police in Memphis after the police told him to push the car to the side of the road. Specifically, he told him: "Sir, my name is Sam Cooke. If you haven't heard of me, your wife knows me. When you get home tonight, you ask your wife if she knows Sam Cooke. I don't push no car. This is my car, my brother ran out of gas. I'm not pushing it. You want to put a ticket on it, put a ticket on it. But I don't push no car. Not mine, not yours, not nobody's elses. I'm not a pusher. I'm a singer." Sam then proceeded to sit back in his car, his brother came with the gas, and they left. The police left them alone.

Depending upon your interpretation, this could be seen as one of the first steps for Sam regarding the Civil Rights Movement, which led to his greatest composition, "A Change Is Gonna Come", an African-American response to Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind". This also leads to another flaw in Guralnick's work, a complete lie over an important television appearance of Sam. Daniel Wolff also makes the same mistake. In February of 1964, Sam appeared on The Tonight Show and it's known that he sang "Basin Street Blues" as the performance still survives. However, according to both Guralnick and Wolff, Sam also sang "A Change Is Gonna Come" on the same show. I'm not sure what Wolff does in an attempt to prove this, but Guralnick uses a cue sheet with a similar title to "A Change Is Gonna Come" to prove that Sam did indeed sing the song.

I recently contacted a Carson archivist, and Sam never sung the song. It took me a day to figure it out. Guralnick worked on this book for more than fifteen years. If he went through such work to that the song was planned, why wouldn't he check the log book of the episode to see if Sam sung the song to be completely sure? During the days of The Tonight Show, some guests would exceed the length of time they occupied and therefore, some guests would never make it onto the show.

Perhaps that's not a very big flaw in the biography of Sam; it's only a single event. Consider this. On the eighth page of the biography, there is a picture with the caption "A very young Sam Cooke". The eighth page and Guralnick makes a major mistake. It's not Sam. It's his brother, L.C. Three months after the book was released, the mistake was corrected. If Guralnick cannot properly identify a photo of the person he's writing about, what other mistakes is he prone to make in the book?

Perhaps the biggest mistake Guralnick makes is stating that the official version of events concerning Sam's death was how it went down. As I read the chapter regarding Sam's death, I seriously considered whether or not Guralnick was employed by Allen Klein, whom Sam was planning to fire. Who was Allen Klein? I don't know too much about him myself, but I do know that he swindled the Cooke family out of the royalties of Sam's catalog with help from one of Sam's daughters and his widow. I do know that he also conned The Beatles as well as The Rolling Stones. That's about it. Yet, he uses Allen Klein's and Barbara Cooke's commentary exclusively. If you do a Google search about the death of Sam, you'll find an analysis of the "official" version of events that pokes five large gaping holes into the official version of events. In addition, the coroner's inquest was a complete joke and contradicted itself numerous times. Daniel Wolff didn't believe the official version of events, Sam's fans don't believe the official version of events, and Sam's family doesn't believe the official version of events. Pretty much no one believes the official version of events other than Guralnick.

I'm not sure what Wolff does to debate what really happened that night, but Erik Greene includes a report in his book that is extremely different from the official version of events. Well, you may say that he would naturally do that, considering Sam was a member of his family. Instead of using the "facts" from the coroner's inquest and related events, Greene chooses to tackle the mystery of Sam's death via a pathology report. Scientifically speaking, I believe that it's quite accurate.

Here's the rather discerning part. Peter Guralnick is known as the definitive biographer of Sam Cooke. But of course, no biography doesn't have its flaws. However, keep in mind that I do not cite all the mistakes made in Dream Boogie. I can probably cite four or five more off the top of my head. But I think I've trashed the book enough. What's the worst part? The flaws in Dream Boogie, known as the Sam Cooke Bible, could be perhaps passed off as truth by a less-than-familiar (historically speaking) Sam Cooke fan, and are blatantly obvious to the die-hard fans of Sam Cooke.

If you want a good biography of Sam that is entertaining, through, and truthful, either check out Wolff's biography or Greene's biography, which I highly recommend, which was by a member of the family of Sam Cooke.

I've always had a need to dig deeper and find out more about those who have made an impact on me. I long to know what made them click. I adore Sam Cooke and knew little about him. I was hoping that this book would provide insight on the life of this man whoes voice I love.

I am sorely disappointed with this book. The only thing preventing me from putting it down (unfortunately, I'm still in the middle of it) is sheer stubborness and the hope that it will redeem itself soon. I've probably skipped more pages than I've read. It's a pity that Sam isn't here to tell his own tale. It seems as if the author was able to locate everyone else who ever came in contact with him and allowed them to include their thoughts and opinions, whether the observation was pertinant to the story or not. I believe that many passages could simply have been ommited. And that if they were, the book would have been a far better (and shorter) read.

I admire and love Sam Cooke enormously. I am in awe of what he accomplished in such a short period of time.

I have read a lot of what's been written about him and I have also read almost every article that Peter Guralnick wrote about Sam Cooke and read every interview he gave about Sam Cooke.

From the very first of these articles, I noticed immediately how obviously biased Guralnick was toward Allen Klein, Sam's business menager and also the owner of Sam Cooke's estate.

About a year ago, when a group of us talked on the web about Guralnick and "Dream Boogie", I said that I was hoping that Guralnick will be objective and will not give us a kind of "In Praise Of Allen Klein" story. Consequently, shortly after this book was out, I asked those who read it by then, whether Guralnick discussed the fact that Sam was planning to fire Allen Klein. The answer was negative but there were comments that in their opinion, Guralnick was partial to Klein, or that he was favoring Klein or that he was slanted toward Klein.

I had a very informed opinion why Guralnick deliberately omitted this issue in his book. Like anybody who has read anything about the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, I too knew about Allen Klein's infamy as the business manager of these two groups and his subsequent jail term. But then I read the book "Our Uncle Sam" by Erik Greene, and my "informed opinion" became a definite certainty, a definite knowledge.

Guralnick kept mum on this subject to avoid any negative light being cast on Allen Klein. If he included this issue in his book then he would have had to explain the reasons for the Rolling Stones firing Allen Klein in 1972 and filing a lawsuit against him for $29 million. He would also had to explain the reason's for the three Beatles--John, Ringo, and George filing a lawsuit against Klein too, in 1973, and that six years later Allen Klein was sent to jail for violations stemming from his mismanagent of the Beatles' company. Paul was the only one who heeded Mick Jagger's warning against hiring Allen Klein as his business manager. (all these facts are public record.)

In addition to the above, Guralnick would have had to explain the role that the "inside man", J.W. Alexander, played in making it possible for Klein to become the sole owner of "Tracey", which Sam established to be the parent company of all of his enterprises. And the role Linda (Sam's and Barbara's daugheter) played in "giving" the Sam Cooke Publishing Company to Allen Klein. This company was set up by Sam to take over control of the copyrights to his music catalog, once the original copyrights expeired in 1985. This company belonged to all of Sam's children who were his heirs.

Taking into account the above information and considering additional pertinent information that's available about this issue, I truly believe that it is very reasonable to conclude that Guralnick deliberately chose not to include this topic in "Dream Boogie". I believe that he did so out of concern and fear that a closer scrutiny of this whole issue will expose the true nature of the manner in which Sam Cooke's estate was handled.

Any author writing a biography owes it to his readers to be objective and accurate and non-biased; otherwise he compromises his integrity. Any author writing a biography about Sam Cooke must include and discuss the fact that Sam Cooke was planning to fire Allen Klein and the reasons behind it; especially since Allen Klein ended up owning Sam's artistic legacy--everything that Sam created with his sweat and hard work and most probably even paid with his life for...

For the deliberate exclusion of this issue from "Dream Boogie", and for the numerous discrepancies and inaccuracies, I am rating Guralnick with zero stars. I am giving the book one star solely for the historical facts it contains. In my opinion, the information provided by Barbara and by Bobby Womack and by J.W. Alexander and by Allen Klein is unreliable and suspect unless it is accompanied by nonrefutable supporting confirmation.

Sam Cooke always rates more than five stars.

Peter Guralnick brings his considerable talent to the life of soul great Sam Cooke. As he did in his superb biographies of Elvis Presley, Guralnick lets the drama of Sam Cooke's life unfold without foreshadowing. In this way the reader is swept up in the saga almost forgetting the inevitable tragic ending of the life of Sam Cooke. Guralnick researched this book thoroughly with the full co operation of the estate of Sam Cooke. The result is a masterpiece of music journalism. Sam Cooke lives within these pages.

Guralnick tried very hard in this book (the only biography of Cooke I have read, though I notice there's another written within the past 10 years). I empathize with the frenzy of a researcher who has a truck-load of somewhat-relevant information, and about a cupful of truly relevant information. Guralnick does what lots of us have done in those last minutes of hysteria before the due date: Throws everything at the reader and hopes the reader will sort it all out.

Maybe I'm losing my mind or my memory, but I had a hard time sorting it all out. Every percussionist who banged a stick on a drum behind Cooke, every singer who harmonized a note with him (and, frequently, against him), every businessman who tried to make a buck off him, every hanger-on (including relatives) who ever bummed a ride off him: They're all marched by us, then referenced backwards, then pop up 150 pages later. We learn about his record deals and other artists' record deals, and we revisit so many gospel and pop road shows that by the end I could well imagine myself screaming to be let out of the back seat of the Cadillac rather than face another stage. It's easy to guess who gets lost in this mess: Sam Cooke, of course.

I sympathize with the author. Cooke's been dead over 40 years, he was a young man when he died, he apparently didn't keep a diary or write letters (the absolute high point of the book for me was the one letter quoted, polite and well-written, in Cooke's own words), and most of his acquaintances still around to interview aren't sharing a lot of deep insights to the man's personality. So here is my suggestion, based on having had to work around factual voids myself: the compare and contrast essay. It might have made more sense for Guralnick to set up some foils to help us understand what it was about Cooke that caused his rise but might have contributed to his undoing, as well. There are many African-American entertainers of about Cooke's age (most of whom show up in this book at some point) who became cross-over hits and did not die young. It would have been interesting to me (who did not grow up in an African-American neighborhood in the 1940's and '50's) to know why Harry Belafonte and James Brown, for example, each in their own highly diverse ways, kept on singing for decades after Cooke died. Was there something about Cooke's background or personality that created for him a terrible destiny, or was it just one night when luck was against him?

I will make one more point that will probably not endear me to some people reading this. There was clearly pathology in Cooke's upbringing, and it gets glossed over in favor of the front-page civil rights stories of the following decade. However, it wasn't just the civil rights struggles that made Cooke what he was. His earlier experiences would, obviously, have been most formative, and of these, there is a Dad who was a womanizer (and head of a very large family), at least one brother who served time in prison at a young age, a sister who seems to have begun childbearing without benefit of vows, and in general a kind of confusing mix of the overtly controlled (Dad was the minister of several Bible churches and Cooke was originally a gospel singer surrounded by both the sacred and the profane) and covertly out-of-control (sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, violence, theft) that has led to cognitive dissonance in many a person, white as well as black. From the accounts of people who knew him, as well as from his own words and behavior, Cooke seemed like a highly intelligent and talented person who even as a child--particularly as a child--would have begun to develop existential doubts in the face of such craziness. The cause of those environmental pathologies (including but not limited to racism) are numerous and unpleasant, but because they occurred in a discriminated-against minority group doesn't mean they didn't exist, and to slight them actually diminishes Cooke's triumph. (Yes, I understand there are lots of reasons Guralnick might have deliberately taken the course he took, including the fact that some of the worst offenders were his sources; because it was a reasoned decision doesn't mean it was an effective one.)

A Top 5 pick for 2005.I agree with a previous reviewer,this bio would make a great movie.Just like RAY.Although I don't know about Will Smith.Sam Cooke was a complex individual,triumphant yet tragic.What's also great abot this book is that Mr.Guralnick shows the adversity of what Black entertainers had to go through in the 50's and 60's,the sleaziness of the music business,and eventually of how Sam Cooke triumphed.Also in the book we are introduced to a wide variety of indiviuals:Jackie Wilson,Little Richard, Cassius Clay,Allen Klein(who eventually managed 3 of 4 Beatles and the Rolling Stones)and one of my favorites Lithofayne Pridgon.This book will have you laughing out loud in some spots and quietly reflecting in others.In the end you realize what the world would miss and that in itself is the greater tragedy.

I have put this book down more often than I have picked it up to read again. I have skipped pages and pages of it and the only reason that I insists on finishing it, it's because I hope that there is something there worth it.

This book is full of historical information and irrelevant details that should not have been included. It seems that Peter Guralnick gathered every word of available historical information on the subject, and strung them together into exhaustive sentences and equally exhaustive chapters.

I thought that this book will answer some of my questions about Sam Cooke, but it did not, even though the author seems to have talked to miriads of people and recorded their opinions as facts, whether relevant or not.

And so I am still left to wonder what did Sam Cooke find out about his business manager, Allen Klein, that made him decide to fire him? Just what is the relationship between Peter and Allen? Is Peter Guralnick employed by Allen Klein? I know that he wrote the liner notes to quite a few of Sam Cooke's records.

I adore Sam Cooke and I am very disappointed in this book. To me "Dream Boogie" is like a senior High School student's paper, only much longer. I rate this book with one star and that is only because of its subject. Sam Cooke it the right subject but Peter Guralnick did a very lacking job of telling us about Sam Cooke.