Lean on Me—Murfin Home Confinement Music Festival 2020

Lean on Me by Bill Withers.

Just as his 1972 hit Lean on Me was becoming an anthem for front line health care workers and first responders during the Coronavirus pandemic Bill Withers died on March 30 with his family making the announcement yesterday.  The 81 year old singer and songwriter was not, however, a victim of the bug but succumbed to long standing heart problems.

Withers was a master of smooth soul music that often had an uplifting vibe during the 15 years of his active musical career in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.

Long before he was a star he was a working class guy, experiences that have led some to call him a Black Bruce Springsteen but his life was even humbler and entailed plenty of dirt under the fingernails. 

He was born on July 4, 1938 as William Harrison Withers Jr.  in the tiny coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia and brought up in nearby Berkley where a stutter made it hard to fit in.  His father died when he was 13 leaving the family in dire financial straits.  Desperate to get out he joined the Navy as soon as he could at age 18 and served a full nine years of active duty.  He was rated as an aircraft mechanic but later joked he spent much of his time installing toilets.

While he was in the Navy Withers became interested in music and taught himself guitar and piano.  He left the Navy in 1965 and relocated to Los Angeles in 1967 to with an eye on a possible music career and because there were plenty of good blue collar jobs to support himself in the meantime un till he could start a music career.  He was a factory hand at several different companies including Douglas Aircraft Corporation, while recording demo tapes with his own money, shopping them around and performing in clubs at night. 

Bill Withers posed with his lunch box at is factory job for his first album which featured the break out hit Ain't No Sunshine.

In 1970 struggling Sussex Records signed him on the basis of those demo tapes and assigned him to work with producer and arranger Booker T. Jones formerly of Booker T. and the MGs at Staxx.  After three recording sessions stretched out over nearly a year Withers’s first album, Just as I Am was released in 1971 with the tracks, Ain’t No Sunshine and Grandma’s Hands as singles. Stephen Stills played lead guitar.  All the while Withers kept punching in at his day job because he believed the music business was a fickle industry The album cover even  pictured him at his job at Weber Aircraft in Burbank holding his lunch box.

When the singles, especially Ain’t No Sunshine which became an instant classic charted and album sales were brisk, Withers finally quit the day job and assembled a band built around members of the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band hit the road on tour.  Sunshine earned an RIAA Gold Record for sale of a million records in September of 1971 and the following year won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.  Withers was a certified star.

Bill Withers in live performance.

He followed up with a second album, Still Bill which featured the anthem Lean on Me which went to #1 as a single  on the week of July 8, 1972.  His second gold single had confirmed sales  of over three million.  Use Me, another went gold in October.  A month later he recorded Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall.

But trouble lay ahead.  Up to this time Withers and Booker T. had free hands in selecting what they could record.  But Sussex Records was in trouble and disputes with company executive kept his third studio album +/Justments from being released.  When the company folded industry giant Columbia Records swooped in and bought Withers’s contract and his back catalog which enabled the label to re-issue compilations of his work.  But executives refused to allow Withers to record some his new material and leaned on him to add more covers.  A particularly bitter dispute erupted when they pressured him to cover an Elvis Pressley song.  He did an album a year for four years for Columbia, none of which matched his sales at Sussex.  The third album, Menagerie did better than the others had featured the moderate hit Lovely Day which did exceptionally well in Britain.

Fed up with Columbia, Withers spent most of his time after 1977 working in collaboration with other artists on their labels including Just the Two of Us with jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. with which he won his third Grammy in 1980,  Soul Shadows with the Crusaders, and In the Name of Love with Ralph MacDonald, and the album Dreams in Stone with French singer Michel Berger. 

In 1985 he finally completed his contractual obligation to Columbia with a new studio album, Watching You Watching Me, which featured the Top 40-rated R&B single Oh Yeah.  In press interviews Withers complained that two of the first three singles released, were the same songs which were rejected in 1982 and that the label had signed and promoted non-singing actor Mr. T while preventing him from releasing his own music. 

After touring in support of the album with Jennifer Holliday Withers walked away from the music industry and never looked back.  He had lost all interest in the back stabbing and intrigue that were part of the recording end of the business and just plain tired of touring.  Not becoming a success until age 32 meant that in his words he was “socialized as a regular guy” who had a life before show business and could  have an ordinary life again.

Withers with John Legend at his 2005 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Withers seldom emerged in public, most notably at the At the 30th Annual Grammy Awards in 1988 when he won the Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Song Songwriter for the re-recording of  Lean on Me by Club Nouveau, in 2005 when he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and 2015 when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  In that awards program he jammed on stage with Stevie Wonder and John Legend on Lean on Me.

Withers summed up his career—“I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.”

The Strange, Sad Death of Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke in the Recording studio.

It was a semi-seedy Los Angeles motel, well removed from the glitz and glitter of Hollywood.  In the wee small hours of December 11, 1962 an out of place, gleaming red Ferrari screeched up to the office and a young, frantic Black man clad only in a sport coat and a single shoe leaped out and began pounding on the closed door of the manager’s apartment.  Highly agitated the man forced his way in demanding to know where the young woman was who had checked in with him not long before and accusing the female manager of harboring her.  He screamed something about her stealing his clothes and money.  He grabbed the woman.  They tussled and fell to the floor.  She managed to wriggle free and grab a pistol.  She got off a wild shot that lodged in the ceiling but the next bullet pierced the man’s naked chest as he advanced on her again passing through his lungs and heart.  “Lady, you shot me,” the astonished man reportedly said but had enough strength to continue to stagger toward her.  The manager dropped the gun and used a broom handle to beat him on the head until he collapsed—and apparently for a while after—until the intruder was dead.  So went the account of the motel manager, which was quickly accepted by the police,

The whole sordid event would have barely merited a back page mention in the Los Angeles Times—just a bit of senseless urban violence, the possible inspiration for a late film noir at best.  Except that the corpse had been 33 year old Sam Cooke, then the most popular Black singer in America with a long string of hits and rare cross-over appeal for White audiences. 

He was a musical innovator whose smooth style had practically invented romantic soul music who had mentored and influenced a rising generation of young artists, and opened the door for the Motown sound.  On the basis of his good looks and the easy charm of his personality he was on the verge of branching out into movies and perhaps his own TV variety show.  He was also a shrewd businessman who had avoided the pitfalls that drained the money of many Black artists into the pockets of White agents, producers, and investment hucksters and had formed his own record label and struck a recording contract with RCA Victor.  And with all of his success he was well liked and admired by his peers and colleagues.   

Naturally there were headlines and scandal.

Cooke was born on January 22, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, one of a brood of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Annie Mae.  The family moved early to Chicago where the Rev. Cook took the pulpit of the Christ Temple Church where Sam was soon singing with his siblings.  When he was 9 years old they formed the Singing Children which was soon in demand for guest performances at Black churches across the city.

While attending Wendell Phillips Academy High School, the alma mater of Nat King Cole, Cooke moved up to lead singer of the popular Gospel music group the Highway QC’s at the age of 14.  He was also a neighbor and close friend of Lou Rawls who sang with another Gospel ensemble.

Young Sam Cooke, bottom left, joined the established Gospel Group the Soul Stirrers and quickly became both their lead tenor and musical leader.

When the QC’s broke up Cooke moved over to the established Soul Stirrers in 1950 taking over tenor and leadership from the group’s founder, R.H. Harris.  Despite—or because of—his youth he brought a fresh sound to the Chicago Gospel scene and was soon attracting a younger crowd, including adoring teen girls and branching from church appearances to secular venues like theaters and even dance halls.  The group signed a deal with Specialty Records and made several successful records, most arranged and some written by Cooke.

Despite his deep roots in Church and religious music young Cooke found the attention of his young female fans irresistible.  At one point in the mid-50’s he was juggling three pregnant girlfriends, two in Chicago, and one in Cleveland. 

In 1956 Cooke was eager to explore secular music, but was leery of offending his loyal Gospel fan base which had turned on other artists who moved on to pop.  He recorded a couple of singles as Dale Cook.  But his distinctive voice on the moderate hit Lovable which he adapted from the Gospel song Wonderful did not deceive anyone.  He got the permission of Specialty Records head Art Rupe to make secular records under his own name.  But the two soon clashed over Cooke’s approach—Rupe wanted a harder driving sound like the label’s other Gospel star turned Rhythm and Bluesman Little Richard.  Cooke was looking for a more mellow, romantic groove.

Cook bolted Specialty and signed a new deal with Keen Records which in 1957 released the blow out hit You Send Me.  The single became a number one hit on both Billboard ’s Rhythm & Blues Records chart and the Billboard Hot 100.  The unprecedented crossover appeal was so deep that You Send Me became the favorite record of my 43 year old mother, usually a devotee of the likes of Patty Paige, Eddie Fisher, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.  When Theresa Brewer came out with a cover for White audiences, it was a #8 hit—but it revived interest in Cooke’s original, sending it back up the charts and topping hers in sales.

In the months and years that followed Specialty Records scrambled to release two records it had in the can and Keen released 12 singles.  All became hits including now classics like I’ll Come Running Back to You, Sentimental Reasons, and Wonderful World.

Cooke seized control of his own profitable publishing with the creation of Kags Music in partnership with gospel producer J.W. Alexander.  The pair along with Cooke’s manager Roy Crain also founded a record label, SAR Records in 1961 which found success issuing sides by The Simms Twins, The Valentinos, Cooke’s close friend Bobby Womack, and Johnnie Taylor.

During these years Cooke was touring extensively and appearing on TV shows.  He continued to chase skirts and he also began to drink regularly and heavily.  He was briefly married to singer-dancer Dolores Mohawk, who divorced him over his serial infidelity.  But when she was killed in a California car crash in 1959, Cooke paid all of her final medical and burial expenses.  The same year Cooke married Barbara Cambell, a former teenage sweetheart with whom he had a daughter, Linda.

Cupid was just one of Sam Cooke's big hits for RCA Victor.

In 1961 Cooke’s recording career really slipped into high gear when he signed with mainstream RCA records.  A new string of hits began with Chain Gang, and included Cupid, Bring it on Home to Me, Another Saturday Night, and Twistin’ the Night Away.  In all he posted 29 top 40 hits and several more on the R&B charts.  Although he concentrated on singles, RCA issued hugely successful albums and compilations.

Cooke was at the peak of his career that December.  He had laid down more tracks for RCA including his great Civil Rights anthem A Change is Gonna Come and Shake, both of which the label later released and became posthumous hits.

That fateful night Cooke left his wife and three children at their posh Hollywood Hills home to meet a business associate for drinks and dinner at the popular Martoni’s Italian restaurant off Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood, a popular hangout for music industry types, wannabes, and hangers-on.  After a few drinks, Elisa Boyer a striking 23 year old attracted his attention.  After a few more drinks the pair departed in his Ferrari.

Elisa Boyer, the woman Cooke picked up during an evening of drinking at an Italian restaurant and took to a seedy motel miles away.  She claimed he tried to rape her and that she fled with his clothes.  Cooke's family has always disputed her account  and portrayed her as a hustler in a jack rolling scheme. 

What happened next is a source of controversy.  Boyer would later testify that she asked Cooke to drive her home but that instead he made the 30 minute drive to the Hacienda Motel on Figueroa Street in L.A.  Cooke checked in for a $3 a night room.  Boyer accompanied him. No one reported a struggle. 

Once inside she said that Cooke stripped her clothes off and began to attack her.  She said that when he went into the bathroom for a moment, she swooped up her clothes—and almost all of his—and bolted out the door.  She sprinted to the motel office where she pounded on the manager’s apartment door yelling that she had been kidnapped.  The manager was slow to respond so she ran away, still clutching Cooke’s clothing, including his pants with his wallet in it, fearing that he would be after her.

He was.  When Cooke emerged from the bathroom he threw on his jacket, one shoe and grabbed a towel and jumped in his car to speed to the office.  The manager, Bertha Franklin may have been slow to be roused by Boyer but moments later she said that she was on the telephone with the motel owner, Evelyn Carr who later testified that she heard the whole incident.  It was Carr who placed the first of several shooting reports to the police.

The hotel manager who shot Cooke and the small gun she used.  She also beat him repeadedly with a broom handle.

Investigators took Franklin’s and Carr’s testimony at face value—certainly the evidence seemed damning to Cooke.  When they tracked down Boyer later they found little to doubt in her story.  The case was quickly ruled a justifiable homicide Franklin was not charged in the death.

Cooke’s family never bought the story.  They pointed out that despite his history of womanizing, Cooke had no history of violence or coercion.  Singer Etta James viewed Cooke’s body and wrote he was so badly beaten that his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled, more damage than a woman alone was likely to be able to administer with a broom handle.

The family believed that Boyer lured Cooke to the Motel in a classic John roll in which his clothing was taken with his wallet in order to prevent the victim from pursuing.  Perpetrators of this kind of operation usually work in collusion with room renters and often have pimps or thumpers on hand in case the victim gets unruly.  Although this sounds like a possible scenario, no connection between the three women involved was ever established and no evidence of enforcers ever brought forward.

Later Franklin sued Cooke’s estate alleging physical injuries and mental anguish and seeking $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.  Cooke’s widow, Barbara, who had married Bobby Womack just three months after her husband’s death, counter sued  for $7,000 to cover the cost of her husband’s funeral expenses.  In the 1967 trial Boyer and Carr testified on Franklin’s behalf.  A jury ruled in favor of Franklin on both counts, awarding her $30,000 in damages.  All three women then essentially vanished from public record.

The family’s brush with bizarre scandal was not over.  Barbara and Bobby Womack had apparently launched an affair while Cooke was still alive.  Their rapid marriage scandalized and offended the rest of the family.   Then, Barbara discovered that Womack was secretly molesting teenage Linda.  She held a gun to his head and threatened to kill him before chasing him out of her house.  That caused a breach between mother and daughter.  Linda eventually married Womack’s brother.

In the fifty years plus since his death, Cooke’s enduring popularity, reaching near cult worship status has tended to give credence to the family’s conspiracy theory, despite the angry accusations of some feminists that defenders of his reputation were blaming the victim. 

It looks like many of Cooke’s devoted fans may have to divorce his art from his life.