“Gospel music is always timeless,” says Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Solomon Burke. “The test is, you take these great groups like the Soul Stirrers, play their records and see what relief, joy and peace you’ll get.”
Producer T Bone Burnett and filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen’s new gospel-infused soundtrack album, “The Ladykillers: Music From The Motion Picture” (from the Coen brothers’ film starring Tom Hanks), features three classic Soul Stirrers cuts showcasing the group’s star lead singer, Sam Cooke. These vintage gems — “Any Day Now,” “Jesus I’ll Never Forget” and “Come, Let Us Go Back To God” — are combined with the finest contemporary gospel artists (Donnie McClurkin, Rose Stone and the Abbot Kinney Lighthouse Choir) and hip-hop’s Grammy-nominated Nappy Roots (“Trouble of This World”) to form a cutting-edge record glimmering with sublime grace.
Mr. Burnett and the Coen brothers are no strangers to scouring the lost vestiges of Americana and reviving such relics as retro-chic. In 2001 they made bluegrass music fashionable with their Grammy-winning “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” one of the most successful film soundtracks in history. Now, with “The Ladykillers,” they have once again tapped into a uniquely American musical genre.
Can the new soundtrack album do for gospel what “O Brother” did for bluegrass?
While Mr. Burnett has proven adept at fusing the old with the new, the most important music on “The Ladykillers” is that created by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers over a half century ago. Before crossing over into secular music, Mr. Cooke recorded some of gospel’s most essential tracks, including (in addition to the songs here): “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” “Nearer to Thee” and “That’s Heaven to Me.”
However improbable a gospel resurgence based on such seemingly ancient music may be, it would come as no surprise to Mr. Burke, himself a noted gospel and soul singer and a contemporary of Mr. Cooke’s.
“It was the spiritual belief inside that made the Soul Stirrers powerful,” says Mr. Burke, also an ordained bishop, in a telephone interview.
“Sam Cooke had brilliance,” he continued. “He had youth, the ability to write and to be creative. He always thought of the future. He was one of the first black record label owners [SAR Records] and cultivated other artists [Bobby Womack, Billy Preston and the Simms Twins]. He was even bold enough to step out of the Soul Stirrers [at their pinnacle] and do his own thing.”
Mr. Cooke’s “own thing,” of course, proved far more commercially successful than his gospel career with the Soul Stirrers. Leaving the group to test his considerable abilities in the pop market in 1956, Mr. Cooke virtually invented soul music, making him one of the most successful, original and important singers in American musical history.
Mr. Cooke’s pop standards “You Send Me,” “Chain Gang,” “Twistin’ the Night Away,” “Cupid,” “Shake” and his most crucial work, the hauntingly beautiful civil rights anthem, “A Change is Gonna Come,” rendered him immortal. But even next to these achievements, Mr. Cooke’s seminal work with the Soul Stirrers remains critically influential.
“Sam Cooke had a big impact on my life and career,” says soul, gospel and rhythm and blues singer Aaron Neville, who has sung cover versions of Cooke-penned classics in both pop and gospel genres. “I wanted to be Sam Cooke when I was 13. Most of the gospel and spiritual music I was exposed to growing up featured singers that really belted out what they were singing — which is cool. But Sam was very smooth and laid back, which was even cooler.”
“The Soul Stirrers were a tremendous group,” says Juan Williams, author of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.” “What made them stand out was you could hear Sam Cooke for the first time using his voice in innovative ways.
“With the Soul Stirrers, Sam Cooke allowed the male vocalist to sing in the upper registers and not sound girlish,” continued Mr. Williams. “It was seductive, it was praising of God, and it was spiritual. That’s why you see his influence in Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and the groups of Motown like the Temptations. A great deal of the Motown sound came from Sam.”
Tragically, Mr. Cooke was shot to death in 1964 in a mysterious altercation with a female guest and a night manager in a seedy Los Angeles motel. He was only 33.
Mr. Cooke is most often remembered for his creamy pop sounds and his brutally sensational, untimely demise. But here, with “The Ladykillers,” T Bone Burnett and the Coen brothers have resurrected his early gospel music with a repackaging that is as infectious as Mr. Cooke’s Soul Stirrers-era phrasing and signature staccato, “whoa-oh-oh-ah-oh.”
The Ladykillers: Music From The Motion Picture
Various artists
DMZ/Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax
The Complete Recordings of Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers
The Soul Stirrers
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