TV alert: PBS documentary on Sam Cooke

One of the best soul singers and an incredible songwriter to boot. Check it out on "American Masters" tonight. Check you local listings.

Los Angeles Times review:
After a serious car accident, Cooke started to look more closely at his life and the world, and from his experience driving through the South came up with the hit single "Chain Gang" about prisoners working on road crews. He also was profoundly influenced by the social commentary of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," and a highlight of this "American Masters" piece is the footage of him singing it, trading Dylan's folk arrangement for a rippling R&B groove.

He was so inspired about the role music could play in fomenting social change that he wrote "A Change Is Gonna Come," a song that fit hand in glove with both his efforts to empower himselfand other black musicians by creating his own small music publishing company and the record label SAR Records, and with the unfolding civil rights movement.

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