Sam Moore, half of the seminal duo Sam & Dave, died Friday (Jan. 10) in Coral Gables, Fla. The reason for demise was issues from surgical procedure. He was 89.
Moore, who was revered by artists together with Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, Garth Brooks and Jon Bon Jovi, had an immediately recognizable tenor, first heard on such call-and-response classics as Sam & Dave’s Nineteen Sixties hits “Maintain On, I’m Coming” and the Grammy-winning “Soul Man,” each of which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Sizzling R&B Singles chart, in addition to “I Thank You” and “When One thing Is Mistaken with My Child.” The duo, who carried out at Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorial live performance at Madison Sq. Backyard following his assassination in 1968, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 1992 by Billy Joel.
Moore, who grew up in Miami, started singing in church and drew the eye of one other legendary Sam, Sam Cooke, who wished Moore to switch him in his gospel group The Soul Stirrers. Nevertheless, after seeing Jackie Wilson carry out, Moore shifted from gospel to pop and was performing on the King O’Hearts Membership when he met Dave Prater and the 2 shaped Sam & Dave.
Legendary Atlantic Data executives Ahmet Ertegun, Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler noticed the pair on the King O’Hearts Membership and signed them to the label in 1965. Wexler handed them to Atlantic’s southern accomplice, Stax Data, the place Isaac Hayes and David Porter took them below their wing and produced their iconic hits.
Following Sam & Dave’s breakup in 1970, Moore signed to Atlantic as a solo artist. He recorded a solo album produced by King Curtis that includes Donnie Hathaway and Aretha Franklin. Nevertheless, after Curtis was murdered in 1971, the album was shelved. He reunited with Dave for a number of years, however spiraled into heroin dependancy, which was chronicled within the DA Pennebaker/Chris Hegedus documentary Solely the Robust Survive.
Curiosity within the duo was drastically revived by 1980’s The Blues Brothers film, starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The pair’s major theme was their boisterous model of “Soul Man.”
The tune “turned out to be an anthem, kind of like ‘Blowin’ within the Wind” or a kind of,” Moore informed the Library of Congress in a 2002 interview when “Soul Man” was added to the Library’s Nationwide Recording Registry. “And, I let you know, it doesn’t matter the place I sing — carry out it — on the finish of the evening; if we didn’t do ‘Soul Man, the room would go up in smoke!”
Moore additionally shared how he and Prater labored out the best way to commerce verses, with the assistance of Hayes. “By me at the moment being the dominate one — and I’m not bragging right here — I at all times sang the excessive components,” he stated in the identical interview. “We went again with Isaac and he took us backwards and forwards [with the verses]. Isaac was like, ‘Sam, strive one thing like this.’ I keep in mind him saying, ‘We wish it shiny. Not a uninteresting opening.’ That’s why you hear all of the excessive. Isaac was the one which recommended that.”
Within the early ‘80s, Moore grew to become sober with the assistance of Joyce McRae, whom he married in 1982 and who grew to become his supervisor.
Moore went on to carry out for six U.S. presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Invoice Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and was a frequent performer on the Kennedy Heart Honors.
Springsteen requested Moore to carry out on his 1992 Human Contact album, in addition to Solely the Robust Survive, his 2023 album of soul covers.
Moore recovered his misplaced 1970 album, Lots Good Loving, and launched it in 2002 through EMI. “I met Sam and his spouse, Joyce, after I was in my 20s and dealing for Rhino Data, who reissued the traditional Sam & Dave albums,” says Exceleration Music inventive director David Gorman, who was instrumental within the album lastly seeing daylight. “Drooling fanboy that I used to be, I confirmed as much as our first assembly holding a forty five and asking for his autograph. The 45 was his solo single ‘If I Ought to Lose Your Love.’ When he picked it up, his jaw dropped as a result of he had fully forgotten that he ever made a solo file in any respect. Over dinner, his reminiscences got here flooding again and he remembered making a complete album however had no recollection round its destiny. As quickly as I acquired again to LA, I requested [mastering engineer] Invoice Inglot if it actually existed and inside a number of days he’d discovered the tapes and despatched over a CD-R. It was sensible. Sam, Joyce, and I labored collectively to discover a new dwelling for the solo album no person remembered making.”
4 years later, Moore launched his first new album in 30 years, In a single day Sensational, which featured Bon Jovi, Sting, Springsteen and Billy Preston, with whom he obtained a Grammy nomination for his or her duet of “You Are So Stunning.”
In 2019, Moore and Prater obtained the Recording Academy’s highest honor, its Lifetime Achievement Award.
In his later years, along with persevering with to carry out, Moore grew to become an artists’ advocate, together with testifying in Congress on behalf of the Truthful Play Truthful Pay Act, which might pay performers for radio airplay.
“His loss is deep,” Gorman says. “He was a power of pleasure as a human being, who lit up everybody round him. As an artist he had the explosive potential to work a crowd out — even Otis [Redding] feared following Sam & Dave on stage — however I discovered Sam’s genius alone together with his data, particularly the ballads. Sam’s cries, his figuring out asides, the best way would use time as a weapon to hit you when it will harm or heal probably the most, gave me consolation and companionship in methods no different artist might. He might flip up the tempo and switch up the warmth, however his slow-burn simply couldn’t be touched. He was a grasp, the final of his type.”
On the time of his demise, Moore was engaged on a gospel album with Rudy Perez. He’s survived by Joyce, daughter Michelle and grandchildren Tash and Misha.
