On December 11, 1964, Sam Cooke was shot and killed in a Los Angeles motel. Millions mourned, and given the nebulous circumstances, many doubted the official version. In “Dream Boogie,” Peter Guralnick describes the mystery surrounding Sam Cooke’s death in immense detail.
Cooke’s death will probably never be truthfully reconstructed. The known facts are as follows: Cooke met party girl Elisa Boyer at a Hollywood restaurant, and after an evening of heavy drinking, he drove her to the Hacienda Motel.
“Lady, you shot me”
Cooke went into the bathroom; When he came out again, his clothes, his money and the girl were gone. He angrily put on a makeshift jacket and went to the motel manager’s apartment, where he thought he had seen Boyer. He banged on the door but the manager, Bertha Franklin, 55, refused to let him in.
Cooke quickly kicked down the door. A scuffle broke out. Franklin got her pistol. Three shots were fired. A bullet pierced Cooke’s heart and lung. “Lady, you shot me,” were his last words. A jury rated the crime as “justifiable homicide”. But many people doubt the course of events described in court.
As Guralnick’s book reveals, a private investigator hired by Cooke’s manager, Allen Klein, discovered that Boyer was a whore and a thief – she insisted that her clients bathe before sex, and while they were doing so, she stole their money and clothes . Cooke’s death was apparently the tragic result of a botched theft.
To accommodate all of his friends and fans, there were two funerals, one in Los Angeles and one in his hometown of Chicago. At the funeral in Chicago, mourners couldn’t fit into the church, and a huge crowd lined the street on the freezing cold day: ordinary people and stars – including Cooke’s friends Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) and Smokey Robinson – who paid tribute to the great soul Singer paid his last respects.
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