Review: 'The Two Killings of Sam Cooke'

I absolutely love Sam Cooke, and his voice, his activism and his legacy live on even today. As a part of the Remastered series, Netflix created a pretty good documentary on the man who once fathered modern soul music and began a change which was definitely gonna come.

If you don't know who Sam Cooke is, then you will need to be filled in briefly. He's the father of modern soul, he was an activist for black rights during the civil rights era, and he was an absolutely brilliant and phenomenal human being. If you would like to read more about his life, I would like to recommend a book called Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick.

The Remastered series is a Netflix show which deals with documentaries on popular musical/cultural figures which have included the likes of Sam Cooke, Johnny Cash and Robert Johnson. The series makes documentaries in a new and modern way using innovative and interesting methods which give a vibrancy to the storytelling of these historical figures.

Again, as with my review on Devil at the Crossroads, I would initially like to cover the summary and overview before I move on to covering what I thought of the documentary overall.

Summary and Overview

The documentary opens with Sam Cooke's death. The likes of Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick and many many more recall hearing about the death of Sam Cooke: that he had been shot dead in a hotel. After this, it moves on to what Sam Cooke stood for briefly, and they talk about how he was more than just a singer or musician, he was an activist for black rights and a man breaking boundaries as well.

After this short introduction, it then goes back into the story of where he came from and where he started singing (in the church as a gospel singer) AND it goes through who else was there (like Smokey and Dionne, Aretha Franklin's father and even Dr. MLK Jr. at some point). The racial divide in which Sam Cooke grew up seems to play a large part not only in his life, but in this documentary. This documentary makes a point of portraying him as an activist for black rights first and a musician second.

The one thing I learnt from this documentary is that there were two opposite sides to Sam Cooke. The first was the one people saw on television, which was clean cut, singing sweet pop songs and love ballads. The second side was the one that performed on stage for the black people. He sang powerful soul and the blues—he was a successful, powerful black man. Seriously, there is a huge difference between the two, it's like he's two completely different people.

Sam Cooke opens his own record label and begins to employ black artists to record, giving them the right royalties after RCA ripped Cooke off on his own royalties. But this seemed to go awry after Cooke's son accidentally drowned. Sam Cooke began drinking more and he also became a workaholic.

Another thing this documentary goes through is the making of classic Sam Cooke songs such as "You Send Me," "Chain Gang," and the epic soul ballad of the civil rights era, (that I learnt was inspired by Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind") "A Change is Gonna Come." I'm not going to lie, "A Change is Gonna Come" is possibly one of the greatest songs ever recorded by anyone, ever.

The documentary goes through many, many aspects of Sam Cooke's life as an:

• Activist
• Musician
• Businessman
• Husband
• Father
• Legend

AND it uses actual footage and interviews from Sam Cooke himself (as there is quite a bit of footage of him) in order to tell the story.

My Opinion

I want to start by saying that this documentary was absolutely excellently put together. There were a range of people interviewed, from singers like Smokey Robinson and Dionne Warwick to businessmen and engineers and sound technicians—people who all knew Sam Cooke personally.

I loved the fact that there was such a wide range of information about him. We weren't limited to just the storytelling from a narrator (not ever actually); instead this story was told by all those who knew him and by Sam Cooke himself from the footage of him.

Another thing I really liked is the way the documentary was put together. Though it was very modern, it managed to retain the atmosphere of the late 50s and early 60s in which Sam Cooke was recording. It invited you into the story to witness who he really was as opposed to standing on the outside. This, I feel, helps the audience really understand the circumstances that drove Sam Cooke to perform like he did.

The one thing I thought was a bit too much though (call me old fashioned!) was the fact the documentary actually opened with pictures of Sam Cooke's dead body. I mean, not even in a casket—he'd just been shot. I thought that was a little heavy and a tiny bit disrespectful. I would definitely use the footage somewhere else after establishing the documentary, but in my personal opinion, I wouldn't open the documentary like that. Though, it is called The Two Killings of Sam Cooke. I guess you could argue for it—but I thought it was a bit much personally.

Apart from the very beginning that made me feel a bit odd, the documentary is a great depiction of a legendary human being. It is a portrait of a man who changed the world for the better and a man who is continually cited as one of the biggest non-white stars of American music. With one of the greatest voices in all of history, Sam Cooke deserves to be remembered through this brilliant and thoroughly interesting documentary.