Sam Cooke - vocalist who founded the soul music. According to Allmusic, Sam Cook is the «most important singer in the history of soul music - its inventor and the most popular and adored performer, not only among African Americans, but among white».
Cook was one of eight children of a Baptist priest from Chicago. Like many children of his circle, he was the very early years singing in church choir, and in the evening entertained the audience consisting of children's band The Singing Children ( «Singing Children»). In the early 1950's Cook becomes a leader pioneering gospel-band The Soul Stirrers, who had enjoyed great success among fans of gospel.
Meanwhile, Cook dreamed of a more widespread popularity, and not only among blacks. His first step in the direction of pop music has become the single «Loveable» (1956). In order not to scare the faithful fans of The Soul Stirrers, the plate was issued under the pseudonym «Dale Cook». Incognito save failed and the contract with the gospel-label had to terminate.
Cook took advantage found creative freedom to record songs in which the first organically fused pop music, gospel and rhythm-blues-end. Special delighted critics called Cook borrowed from the arsenal of techniques gospel unobtrusive repetition of key lines with subtle nuances of intonation. Breakthrough Cook in the charts associated with the song «You Send Me», which in 1957 reached the 1-st place in the Billboard Hot 100, dismiss the U.S. circulation of over 2 million.