Wellesley College Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive Honors Thesis Collection 2014 "You Got To Do The Thing With Soul": Sam Cooke and Soul Music in America Madeline Buckley
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.wellesley.edu/thesiscollection Recommended Citation Buckley, Madeline, ""You Got To Do The Thing With Soul": Sam Cooke and Soul Music in America" (2014). Honors Thesis Collection. 236. https://repository.wellesley.edu/thesiscollection/236 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Thesis Collection by an authorized administrator of Wellesley College Digital Scholarship and Archive. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 1 “YOU GOT TO DO THE THING WITH SOUL” Sam Cooke and Soul Music in America By Madeline Buckley Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in American Studies Wellesley College April 25, 2014 2 Introduction In 1931, Samuel Cook was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi to parents Annie Mae and Reverend Charles Cook, a Baptist, Pentecostal minister. Sam was the fifth of eight children. In 1953 Reverend Cook moved the family to Chicago where he found work as an Assistant Pastor. Cook grew up immersed in the Baptist church, with a strong focus on bible study and church involvement. He started singing in the church choir at six years old and began his vocal career three years later when he formed the gospel trio, The Singing Children, with two of his sisters. In high school Cook became a member of a gospel, a capella quartet, The Highway Q.C.’s.