Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke Summary and Reviews

Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke
by Peter Guralnick

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Book Summary Information

Author: Peter Guralnick
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-09-05
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 768
Publisher: Back Bay Books

Book Reviews of Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke

Book Review: So many questions remain....
Summary: 4 Stars

At our 1990 wedding reception, my wife and I had our first dance to "For Sentimental Reasons"....
Very good book, with good background to the black music business of the 1950's - 1960's and a good oblique look at the need for the civil rights movement (also have a good treatment of that in Caro's LBJ biographies, believe it or not).
But there are so many questions left concerning his murder. He had frequented the hacienda with the Upsetters in the past; should his murderer, Bertha Franklin, have known him? Researching through the internet, it appears she had shot other male customers previously, including only six months before. What exactly was her background? She probably did tolerate or profit from prostitution at that seedy hotel. One cannot take at face value the testimony of the whore Elisa Boyer (is she still alive and in prison for the murder of a boyfriend in the late 1970's??), Franklin, or the motel owner who was reportedly on the phone with Franklin at 2:30 am when this all went down. (How often did the motel owner phone the night manager in the middle of the night? Was that strange behavior for them or not?) Why didn't Bertha Franklin go for her gun when Sam Cooke was reportedly trying to bash his way in her door instead of waiting until afterwards, after he had searched the manager's apartment and was reportedly in a violent struggle with her? Did she really changer her story four times as reported in other sources? Was Sam getting ready to fire Allen Klein, his manager who gets a squeaky clean portrayal in Guralnick's book despite apparently a sharkline reputation and massive profiteering off Sam's death?
His murder would make for a fascinating book in and of itself. The one thing that is clear is that the official version isn't what happened.

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