Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke

by Peter Guralnick

Book Overview

Acclaimed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick returns with a revealing portrait of Sam Cooke--a black performer who appealed to white audiences, wrote his own songs, and controlled his own business destiny. Fully capturing Cooke's accomplishments, "Dream Boogie" also conveys the astonishing richness of the black America of this era. 55 b/w photos.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316377945
• ISBN13: 9780316377942
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 748 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

ALL HAIL THE KING OF SOUL !!!!!

IT'S ABOUT TIME SAM COOKE BEGAN GETTING HIS DUE RECOGNITION. HE IS TRULY THE KING OF SOUL! IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, YOU WILL AFTER YOU READ THIS BOOK. IT'S GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN A GOOD BOOK. DRAMA,LOVE,VIOLENCE AND EVEN HIS TRIUMPHANT RAGS TO RICHES STORY. PETER GURALNICK DID A WONDERFUL BOOK ON THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL,ELVIS AND RETURNED WITH THIS BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN DREAM BOOGIE. TRUST ME,YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED! NOW IF WE COULD GET WILL SMITH TO PLAY SAM IN THE MOVIE WE'LL CALL IT A DAY!

Guralnick delivers again!

A wonderful read! It is well-researched and full of details regarding Cooke's career. It is presented in an interesting but easy to read style. It's not just about Sam Cooke but the times he lived in. The civil rights struggle is a central part of this book. Sam Cooke is a fascinating and historically important musical career and Guralnick brings Cooke's life and career into focus. Highly recommended. Paul Evans

Masterful

I've been waiting for this book ever since I learned several years ago that Peter Guralnick was working on it. Like his other books (especially Lost Highway, Sweet Soul Music, and Last Train to Memphis), it was well worth the wait. Guralnick takes on a subject whose life and work was more complex than surface appearances would suggest. The portrait that emerges is multidimensional, and the reader sees not only the development of Sam Cooke as a performer and entrepreneur, but the shadow sides of his personality, and ultimately his extensive influence in black America in the early sixties. Guralnick's research is thorough. His interviews with Barbara Cooke, Bobby Womack, and Allen Klein add a dimension missing from previous accounts, including the one found in Sweet Soul Music. But by ending the book shortly after Cooke's death, I still find myself with unanswered questions surrounding Allen Klein's handling of Cooke's back catalog and legacy. For several years in the early seventies, there was much talk of a Sam Cooke film bio, with Al Green playing Cooke. Nothing came of it. And why did it take ABKCO nearly forty years to issue an annotated and comprehensive CD package of Cooke's representative work if Allen Klein owned the masters? These questions are really outside the scope of this book, but I can only hope that as a result of Guralnick's access to Klein, these questions can be addressed in an article somewhere. That critique aside,by placing Cooke's story in the larger contexts of the pop and R & B music businesses and the black church, the reader gains a greater understanding of both Sam Cooke and the culture that both nurtured and rebuffed him. Cooke influenced many performers in his own time and afterward --Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, early Rod Stewart, and Al Green, to mention just a few. Peter Guralnick's triumph in Dream Boogie is demonstrating how and why that happened. If you're a part of the generation who grew up with Sam Cooke's records, you'll love this book. If you're part of the generation that missed Cooke because his music was either off the market or poorly repackaged, read this book while listening to the ABKCO compilation and you'll learn why Sam Cooke mattered -- and still matters.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..........MR.SAM COOKE!!!

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.

Elvis' Biographer Turns His Eye to Sam Cooke

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.