Sam Cooke, born in Clarksdale on January 22, 1931, became one of America’s most popular and charismatic singing idols, thrilling millions with hits such as “You Send Me,” “Shake,” “A Change is Gonna Come,” and “Chain Gang” and helping pioneer the blend of gospel, blues, pop, and rhythm & blues that became known as soul music in the 1960s. His family lived at 2303 7th Street before moving to Chicago in 1933, and he began singing with his brothers Charles and L. C. and sisters Hattie and Mary in the family gospel group the Singing Children, led by their father Charles Cook, a preacher and Clarksdale oil mill laborer, and mother Annie. Sam later sang with the Highway QC’s and gained a national following on the gospel circuit as a member of the Soul Stirrers before making the controversial 1957 crossover from religious to secular music and adding an “e” to his surname as he established a new identity in rhythm & blues and pop. His appeal crossed boundaries of race, age, and gender, and his music ranged from ballads to teenage dance numbers and blues-oriented recordings such as “Little Red Rooster,” “Somebody Have Mercy,” “Summertime,” “Frankie and Johnny,” and “Laughin’ and Clownin’.” In a 1964 interview he named Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Louis Armstrong, and Pearl Bailey among his favorite singers, and according to his brother L. C., he also liked B. B. King, Bobby Bland, and Junior Parker. An avid reader and astute, independent-minded businessman, he was one of the first African American recording artists to own his own record label and publishing company, and during the civil rights era he refused to perform at a segregated concert in Memphis in 1961. He was shot to death in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964, under circumstances that continue to generate controversy. More than forty-four years after his death, “A Change is Gonna Come” was revived as an anthem of a new political era when Bettye Lavette and Jon Bon Jovi sang it at the inauguration celebration for Barack Obama. His brother L. C. Cooke, born in Clarksdale on December 14, 1932, also became a vocalist, crossing over from gospel before Sam and beginning an R&B career in 1956 with the Chicago vocal group the Magnificents. The Cooke brothers were the first of a number of noted soul music performers to emerge from the Clarksdale area, including Charles Wright, Sir Mack Rice, Otis Clay, O. B. Buchana, David Brinston, Luther Lackey, and Josh Stewart.