Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. I'm doing a series called What Makes
This Singer Great and next up is Sam Cooke. If you guys wouldn't mind, please like
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Don't forget to ring that Bell so I can keep cool videos coming your way and I
have a singing course called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else, you can find it
right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com for those of you interested
in learning how to sing or sing better. I'm gonna go ahead and do Sam Cooke but
I couldn't get some of the videos that I wanted, like I wanted to get "A Change Is
Gonna Come" and some other stuff and I couldn't get permission to use it. So
I've got a couple pieces I think that'll be cool but. What comes to mind when I
think of Sam Cooke. First and foremost is his beautiful, big, round, velvety just
pillowy sounding vocals. Just absolutely gorgeous beautiful, beautiful
sounding vocals. Of course I've got like "Twisting The Night Away" and "A Change Is
Gonna Come" as what I would have loved to have been able to play, "Unchained Melody".
Guys if you get a chance just go back and take a listen to "A Change Is Gonna
Come" or "Unchained Melody" and just listen to how warm and beautiful and
round and gorgeous and fat and and just like I said pillowy, fluffy soundings, you
know silky his vocal sound in that. You know I got, we've got "Chain Gang" and
"Cupid" like a lot of songs that he's done and he's like kind of
like from the late 50s, early 60s so this isn't a more later, a more recent guy.
Now I know I've said this a million times but Steve Perry claims this is his
biggest vocal influence and I believe it from the sound of Steve's voice, but he
also did a lot of spirituals too, a lot of gospel songs so. Go back and check out
some of the gospel songs it was kind of a strange bedfellow to have him do and, and
how he died and I think he got shot by a hooker's you know sugar daddy or whatever
right um and so there was a you know whole weird sort of thing that happened
around his death and he even knew he was gonna die and he kept going to you know
relatives that something creepy's gonna happen to me some of them kind of blew
him off and you know whatever. So there was a premonition of that for him that
was kind of strange but I also think of his voice as just being effortless,
like he just opens his mouth and just boom it just comes out right. You're not
gonna hear that so much in a couple of these clips but
like I said in "Unchained Melody" and "A Change Is Gonna Come" and you know "Wonderful
World" you know some of these other earlier songs that he did. Incredible pitch, just
phenomenal pitch, like I talk about killer tone. Vowel placement was
absolutely gorgeous, beautiful vowels. I don't even know how he learned to get
those vowels but somehow God gave him just perfect vowel placement. I had to
earn mine, his was a gift I think and then you know you did a lot of covers
you know too so it wasn't all original stuff but so with that said I want to dive
right into this and let's take a listen to Sam Cooke. This is 'Twisting The Night
Away".
And it's old.
Handsome guy.
Spot on vocals right.
Back in this era too like whether it was Danny Kaye, I don't care who it was, of
this era, even earlier, everybody did it live and they did it great and they
did it night after night after night after night after night and and there
was so much talent back there and the bands were live and the horn sections
were live, strings were live, done live you know. You have all these great like
performances and now you know kind of a lot of stuff is on tape, a lot of, most
everything's auto-tune. There was nothing like that, that's what made him great was
they couldn't rely on all these toys and fake stuff and cut and pasting this chorus
to that chorus, to this chorus and can he fix that I couldn't quite sing it right.
No they had to do it and do it live and that's what I totally appreciate about
this. So, so there's that right and then I'm gonna call up on more and then I'm
gonna talk about a couple of other things for, in a minute here but here is
The Ed Sullivan Show this is back in 57.
There's that, there's that Steve Perr..(sings) right. You heard Steve Perry use that a lot,
well that's him.
Again I know he doo-wop kind of crrooner doo-wop stuff.
And, and so when I think of you know
(sings)
So I encourage you to go back and listen to some of the warmer vocals cause these
recordings don't do this justice at all but tell me what you guys think of when
you think of Sam Cooke. I think of to, an era where there was, it was kind of
coming off you know, came off the war right it was you know late 50s, you had the
the swing era and all that stuff and it was kind of a little more happy times,
people a little more relaxed, you know the war was over. Yes we were coming into some
other wars unfortunately and, and we heard a mouthful of that from a lot of
the rock artists you know whether it was Creedence Clearwater and you know all
the early Vietnam stuff and you know man there was a lot of bands, "American Woman"
was written about that. You know we had a bunch of bands writing about early war
stuff "Child In Time", we've talked about that. I did a version of that too. I don't
think I've ever covered any Sam Cooke songs so I'll have to, I'll have to do
that. Maybe I'll do "A Change Is Gonna Come" and I'll put that out so you can see how
I do on that but anyways gang tell me what you think of when you think of Sam
Cooke and also I'm doing this by request so if you've got someone you want me to
cover, please put that in the comments section and check out my next video.