Free Dream boogie: the triumph of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick Page B

called “Mook,” told her about her brothers’ new singing group, and then a friend named Sonny Green reintroduced her to Sam standing in front of the chicken market, where Sam’s brother Willie worked.

3618 Ellis Park. Inset: Barbara Campbell, age eight.
Courtesy of Barbara Cooke and ABKCO
     
    Sam said, “I know her!” And Sonny Green reacted with surprise. But she repeated her name, reminded Sam that she was one of the twins, and when he asked, “How old are you now?” at first she said, “Oh, I ain’t gonna tell you.” Then, when he pressed her, she told him fifteen, and when he challenged that, she compromised on fourteen. Sonny raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything, and she told him afterward, with that peculiar mix of flirtation and intimidation that always seemed to fascinate men, “You better not tell on me—’cause I really like that guy.” She knew she loved him from the moment that they first met.
    Mildred was the one who helped facilitate the first stumbling steps of their love affair. Barbara would meet Sam over at the Richards’ house—they would sit out in the hall and smooch once they were able to get rid of Mook’s brother Curtis. Then Barbara started going to church at Highway Baptist, where Mildred led the children’s choir. Her grandmother encouraged the friendship because the Richards were preacher’s kids, and Barbara started sleeping over at their house on Saturday night and walking to church with Sam on Sunday, stealing kisses along the way. Even though she had other “boyfriends,” she had never really cared about anybody before. But they didn’t do anything else, because there was nowhere else to do it. Soon Sam started coming around every day, and Mildred helped Barbara sneak out of the house a few times at night, telling her grandmother that she needed to speak with her, giving Sam and her a few minutes to smooch on a park bench. Barbara’s grandmother was very strict, so they had to be careful, but with Mildred’s help they were able to carry on their “play” affair right under her nose, and before long, Barbara’s older sister, Ella, joined them at church when she started going out with Mildred’s brother Jake.
    Anyone looking at them from the outside might have thought that Barbara was being ensnared by this sophisticated “older man,” but to Barbara it was a case of the hunter being captured by the game. She loved Sam, she thought he was so cute with his marcelled hair and pug nose, and she knew he liked it when she told him so. She didn’t like it at all herself when he would tease her about her height or the fact that she had no breasts—but she could tell by his impish smile that he didn’t really mean it, and anyway, they would grow. And, of course, he never stopped coming around. She knew he had lots of other girls at his beck and call, but with her determination, Barbara felt, for all of his supposed sophistication, he didn’t stand a chance.
    S AM GRADUATED FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS in June of 1948. He was clearly a young man with a future but not necessarily a future that anyone around him could clearly discern. He had announced his intentions to friends and family: he was not simply going to sing for a living, he was going to be a star. But how exactly he was going to achieve that stardom, whether gospel music would be the vehicle, the QCs the engine of his success, not even he could have said for certain, even though no one who knew Sam Cook could imagine him singing anything but spiritual music.
    He was, in a sense, what they all wanted him to be, providing girlfriends and friends, casual acquaintances, mentors, and fans with the sense that they were “the one,” that however little time he might have available for them, all of his attention, all of his intellect, emotion, and charm were theirs for that moment. That was undoubtedly the key to his remarkable ability, both onstage and off, to communicate a message as sincere as it was