This is something I wanted to do for over 20 years, ... From the time I first met J.W. Alexander, he drew an inspiring portrait of an individual you wouldn't know from the music alone. |
When he went pop, he consciously bleached out the sound with 'You Send Me' [and others]. It was not accidental. |
[The song, based on an old gospel song, was] the fusion of all the elements that till then had simply failed to coalesce, ... It was the uninhibited, altogether abandoned sound of the church; it was the keening, ecstatic voicings by which the world has come to know Ray Charles best. |
[Thus it was that Cooke began ascribing his writing credits to L.C., who would later turn over the money to Cooke.] It may have been unethical, ... But from Sam's point of view, it was adaptive compensation. He'd been taken advantage of because of his ignorance. He set up his label and publishing with the idea of not having him or his artists taken advantage of. |