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Sam
Cooke with the Soul Stirrers
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Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964 /
Sam Cook Greatest Hits /
16 Most Requested Songs
Mozart: 46 Symphonies
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The Piano Concertos /
Piano Sonatas
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The Marriage of Figaro
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Sam Cooke and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
By Deborah D. Moseley
This year, 2006, marks the landmark
birthdays of two of music's most celebrated legends:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) his 250th, and Sam
Cooke (1931-1964) his 75th. It may seem a bit
unorthodoxed to juxtapose a classical musician with a
pop/r&b musician, but it's amazing: they were both born
in the first month of the year, January, and died in the
last month of the year, December. They were both in
their early thirties when they died. Even more amazing,
they both had similar musical modus operandi.
They were both precocious boys: The
'wunderkind' Mozart began composing music as early as
age three. He was also an accomplished pianist. His
musical listening skills were impeccable, for he could
listen to a piece of music, then write the entire score
exactly as it was performed. Sam (no disrespect- it's
how we refer to American popular culture icons, i.e.,
when you're really famous your surname isn't necessary.)
began grooming himself for a performing career at the
age of seven.
According to the DVD
Sam Cooke:
Legend, his brother said that Sam would perform
before a make-believe audience, refining his stage
presence, elocution and vocal skills because he just
knew he was going to be a famous singer. At such a
young age, he had the intrinsic knowledge that working
the proverbial nine-to-five job was monetarily vacuous.
Some people really are born with that special knowledge.
They both perfected their music
mentally first. Sam knew exactly how he wanted his
songs arranged and performed before he entered the
recording studio. Mozart's compositions were already
composed before he transferred them to the manuscript
paper. Having done that, they both produced music that
was carefully crafted, refined and balanced. Mozart's
piano technique and Sam's vocal technique were both
pristine, articulate, ethereal and poignantly
expressive, e.g., Sam's "You Send me," "Cupid" and
"Wonderful World" (in my opinion, this is the greatest
song he ever wrote.
As a six year-old, I would get
misty-eyed every time my parents played that record.
Over forty years later, it still has the same effect.),
and Mozart's
Piano Sonatas, K.330 and K.333 in C Major
and B-flat Major respectively. Conversely, they could
also express a more dramatic, intense, aggressive and
audacious persona.
Listen to Sam's 'Live at Harlem
Square'. I didn't know Sam could 'get down' like that.
WOW! No wonder he is credited with inventing soul
music. It definitely foreshadows the raw abrasiveness
of such great soul masters as Otis Redding, Wilson
Pickett and Sam and Dave. Mozart's
Piano Concerto in d
minor, K.466, and
Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457,
present a somber, tragic and ominous depth of expression
that is not present in his major-key works.
In the historical novel
Sacred and
Profane: A Novel of the Life and Times of Mozart by
David Weiss, a book I bought when I was in high school
and still have, though it is badly worn from repeated
voracious reading, Mozart's father, Leopold, heard the
concerto for the first time and wondered if his son had
really suffered that much. Perhaps Mozart was harboring
a private pain that only his music could express. Music
really is a language.
Both Sam and Mozart could write music
on social issues, yet be subtle about it so as not to be
inflammatory. Sam's "Chain Gang" is a protest song
about the brutality of the capitalistic exploitation of
free prison labor, but it is cleverly masked as a pop
song. Mozart's opera, "The Marriage of Figaro," is
based on a play written by the French playwright Beaumarchais. The play protests the oppression imposed
upon the hopelessly impoverished French masses by Louis
XVI and Marie- Antoinette. The play was banned, but
Mozart managed to persuade Emperor Josef, the brother of
the embattled Marie- Antoinette, to allow him to compose
and produce the opera by omitting the references which
the monarch found objectionable.
Both Sam and Mozart believed that a
musician should be treated and paid as a professional,
not a disdained manservant. The egregious exploitation
of musicians, many of whom were grievously underpaid or
not paid at all, persisted on both sides of the Atlantic
in 18th century Europe and 20th century America.
Regrettably, Mozart never received the financial
compensation he was entitled to from his prolific
genius. Sam, however, fared much better: He signed a
lucrative contract with RCA Records, which gave him
ownership and creative control of all the songs he
wrote. He was also able to own a publishing company and
two record labels to which he signed- on new artists.
He was one of the first artists to realize that the real
wealth in the recording industry lies in ownership.
Both the deaths of Sam and Mozart
generated conspiracy rumors. For years after Mozart's
death, it was rumored that he was killed by his rival,
Salieri, as superbly dramatized in the movie 'Amadeus'.
(It's dismaying that there's no move about Sam after all
these years.) The rumor has long been put to rest, but
the suspicions surrounding Sam's demise have never been
resolved.
Both the music of Sam and Mozart are
timeless and still relevant after all these years, which
makes their music both classical. Their prodigious and
innovative geniuses were compacted into their short
lives: "Not how long, but how well." Of both of them,
it has been said that had they lived longer, they would
have taken music to such levels that stagger the
imagination. We can't have what they might have been,
but we still have what they definitely were, and that is
definitely staggering.
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posted 23 December 2006 |
