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Spoiler alert! Contains details on the final scene of “One Night in Miami”, streaming now on Amazon Prime.
“One Night in Miami” leaves you on a high note.
The Civil Rights Era drama (now airing on Amazon Prime) depicts a fictional reunion between four black legends – Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) – as they debate activism and art issues in a Miami motel room.
The film ends with a tearful Cooke performance “A Change is Gonna Come” on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in February 1964, interspersed with scenes of Malcolm and his family escaping their burning house after a firebomb attack and Cassius changing his name to Muhammad Ali upon joining the Nation of Islam. It’s an electrifying moment, made even more powerful by knowing the real story behind the song itself.
“I know the price of my words”: Leslie Odom Jr. finds voice as Sam Cooke in ‘One Night in Miami’
Sam Cooke was partly inspired by Bob Dylan
In the summer of 1963, Cooke received a copy of Bob Dylan’s new album, “The Freewheelin ‘Bob Dylan”, from his friend and business partner JW Alexander. As screenwriter Kemp Powers describes in the film, Cooke was deeply affected by one track in particular: “Blowin ‘in the Wind,” the folk singer’s meditative protest song that has become an anthem for civil rights and movements. anti-Vietnam war.
“(Cooke) hears a song, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind, ‘written by this young white kid and it rocks him,” Odom says. “He takes the song back and records his own version (in 1964), but he can’t really shake the little shame of not having written a song like that.”
Cooke was also moved by the March on Washington in August 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his now iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. But it was an experience in October – when Cooke and his entourage were fired from a white-only Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite reservations – that allegedly “directly prompted” him to write “A Change is Gonna Come, ”says Peter Guralnick, author of“ Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke ”.
“Sam refused to back down,” Guralnick says. “His protests were so long and loud that his wife, Barbara, was sure they were going to kill him. Eventually he was arrested and thrown in jail for disturbing the peace. He put on the show that night, but he never forgot the experience. ” “
His collaborator said “ it looks like death ”
Cooke said the lyrics to “A Change is Gonna Come” came to him in a dream right after Christmas 1963, and he recorded the song in January. Singing on lush strings and funeral horns, Cooke nods to his religious upbringing – born in Mississippi and raised in Chicago by a pastor father – and yearns for a day when blacks and whites are equal. With the lyrics, “It’s been too hard to live / but I’m afraid to die,” he painfully expresses the physical and emotional toll of discrimination.
“It was obvious to everyone how excited he was about the song, how proud he was of it – but it also seemed like he was upset about it,” Guralnick says. “When he asked his guitarist Bobby Womack about it, Bobby replied, ‘It looks like death.’ And for Sam, it may have echoed some of the weirdness of how it happened. “
“Change” appeared on Cooke’s 11th and final studio album, “Ain’t That Good News,” released in February 1964, but it did not gain immediate attention. In fact, he’s known to have performed it only once in public in his life and that was on “The Tonight Show”. Having achieved cross-pop success with Top 10 Hits including “Chain Gang” and “Twistin ‘the Night Away”, he likely felt the song’s dismal lyrics and intricate arrangements did not suit his more upbeat gigs.
“I wasn’t a huge success and he was a successful artist. He was one of the most popular pop singers of his time, which is another reason I think it’s such a song. remarkable, “says Dr. Charles L. Hughes, author of” Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South. ”
“Change” was released as a single two weeks after Cooke was murdered at age 33 on December 11, 1964 and was quickly adopted by civil rights activists. It was then recorded by Otis Redding in 1965 and Aretha Franklin in 1967.
“In the late ’60s, it was a standard for R&B performers,” says Hughes. “It was picked up by several artists who knew Cooke or who were extremely influenced by him and recognized his power. After that, it’s part of how we think of Sam Cooke in a really wonderful way, because it’s is where it was going, but that’s not necessarily how it landed on its first outing. “
The song resonates more than ever
“Change” has been performed in a memorable way by artists such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, Celine Dion and Patti LaBelle in recent years. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it No.12 on the magazine’s list of the magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and in 2007 the song was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress’s National Recordings Register. for its historical and cultural significance.
Almost 60 years after Cooke recorded the song, “Change” is as relevant and powerful as it was then, especially in light of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and the attack on the song. U.S. Capitol building last week by pro-Trump rioters waving Confederate flags.
“Its central message is really at the heart of the cultural experience of blacks in the United States,” says Hughes. “On the one hand, Cooke describes the depth of horror, the depth of the violence, the depth of the challenge. He tries to be honest and get us to be honest about what that has meant in a white supremacist country. with a white supremacist history.
“On the other hand, he’s trying to persevere. He’s hopeful, but he’s just trying to survive. He says ‘a change is going to happen’, although his voice and the way she’s shaking suggests he doesn’t. ‘maybe not as sure as him It’s on paper. Part of what makes him so brilliant: He demands that we insist on survival and try to find a way to a better place, but we also have to be honest about what that means and how troubled it is. “
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: “ A Change is Gonna Come ”: How Bob Dylan Inspired Sam Cooke’s Anthem
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