Cooke's general direction was clear from age 9, when he told his brother that he would never work a job, slaving just to be broke again.

Peter Guralnick's exhaustive new biography of Sam Cooke documents a life spent in a constant negotiation between Robert Johnson's version of the Faust story and Al Jolson's.

They have simply dropped out of this national narrative. About musicians who cross the other way - Cat Stevens, Al Green or the briefly born-again Bob Dylan - we have much less to say. As Neil Diamond sang in the remake, this is the story of America. Or think of it this way: Johnson, by putting himself into a Yoruba folk tale, reclaimed ethnic ties that had been severed by America Jolson cut the ties himself, claiming full commercial membership in the ascendant New World. The two stories might seem analogous, especially if you consider secular music literally the Devil's, but there is a key difference: the Johnson story is an invocation of the supernatural, and the Jolson story is a renunciation of it. This story also has a long history, going back at least to Al Jolson's 'Jazz Singer,' in which an Orthodox Jewish boy flees his father's cantorial lessons to sing ragtime and marry a shiksa. The second story, no less cautionary, is that of the religious performer who brings sacral elements to the pop marketplace, like Ray Charles, or scandalously crosses over to secular music, like Sam Cooke. Only in America did he become the Devil, and only here did his beneficiary pay so dearly for his moment of bling. The story is a twist on a West African tale in which the crossroads figure is a trickster named Eshu or Legba, who mediates between the gods and men. The first is that of the Delta bluesman, most notably Robert Johnson, who sells his soul to the Devil for otherworldly chops. $27.95.Īmerica has two Faust stories, and they run in opposite directions.

Careless Love by Peter Guralnick