The voice of hope - singer Sam Cooke - excerpt from 'You Send Me: From Gospel to Pop, The Life and Times of Sam Cooke'

It all make go rounded on Sister Flute. That's what the spirit Stirrers called her, a name they'd first heard around fresh York City. There was a Sister Flute in each congregation: the archetypal Church Mother, the individual who started the shouting. When she bloody out - when she danced the sacred dance and locked rigid with the Spirit, for a like reason caught in the throes of possession that the deacons had to advance and wrestle her back into the slip so she wouldn't hurt herself, her organ of sights rolled up, her heels pounding the hard thicket floor, her best Sunday hat crushed and forgotten beside her - one time Sister Flute got to moaning and amening, the quiescence would follow. And then the Stirrers triumphed. Because when you got Sister Flute you got the house, and when you got the house, the offerings were larger and the hosts in the next town bigger.

With his carol Jesus Gave Me Water," Sam had a calling card, on the other hand he still had to learn in what way to turn the crowd, and the alone school was one-nighter after one-nighter. The Stirrers might solitary do 20 to 30 minutes a program - a two of songs during the first half, a hardly any more at the end - on the other hand they booked programs six days a week, ten month without of the year. "It's a bewilderment we lasted so long as we did," SR Crain throw backs "Run ourselves to death!" each successful gospel group had to do it. And you were supposed to achieve Sister Flute every night in each town.

For Sam, there was the added weight that she came expecting to hear RH Harris. Because the christian religion circuit was fairly set, Sam kept having to sing in the same churches and before the same concourses that Harris had. In April, for example, the mind Stirrers hosted their annual Mother's Day program at DuSable High academy The program included the christianity group Pilgrim Travelers [the Stirrers' principal rivals! and Sam's advanced in years radio mates, the Spirit of Memphis. The multitude was fine, but Harris' of recent origin group - the Christland Singers - had appeared in the same place just a week before, and greatest in quantity people in the gospel world couldn't help on the contrary hold the younger man up against the older

That first year, as Sam did the circuit, Sister Flute listened; she smooth nodded her approval; but it wasn't Robert Harris - and she didn't budge

Looking back, Crain believes the difference between Harris, "the gentleman," and Sam Cooke was the difference between the 1940 and the 50 "Harris was a fanatical Christian," Crain recalls. "Sam was not." You could jest with Cooke about the house of god ladies getting off on their harmonies, about the shady ministers and promoter about the sexual shenanigans going upon in the various churches. Harris would hear none of it. It wasn't, according to Crain, that Harris didn't have divine revelation groupies himself, but he "had to test and get the do, where Sam was running away from it."

Quartet singers, arriving in their lengthy cars and dressed in their slick, city-tailored suits, bad always attracted women on the other hand the war years, with their dramatic increase in working women marked a real change. The way Harris bring it to author Anthony Heilbut, "Women became more far-ward, they came to the brow faster, they were more render free of access in their push."

Harris didn't like it. The elderly man believed deeply in not just the the cross highway, but the Gospel Path. For him, the spirit Stirrers were messengers, traveling from town to town, setting an example, and his rectitude (he avoided level being around anyone who derive pleasure fromed a social drink) spoke well to his generation.

Harris' attitude translated directly into the way he sang. Starting in the late 40 leads like the Dixie Hummingbirds' Ira Tucker had begun charging the aisles, running down from one side the center of the house of worship to confront Sister Flute face to face, urging her upon daring her not to answer to the divine presence in the space The Soul Stirrers didn't play that. "RH Harris used to stand right there, flat-footed," says Crain, "and he'd kill the world!"

although Sam had grown up in the Holiness house of god and had seen the outrageously great Brownlee and Tucker in action, he'd been trained to stand just as still. In fact, thanks to RB and the years with the QC Cooke could do a creditable enough impression of Harris to please Sister Flute on the other hand an impression was all it was. "Sam had the best tone," Crain states, "but he couldn't scream Robert Harris. Harris' daddy was the best tenor in Texas. Sam wouldn't tackle any sonnet the least bit too high. Sam used his head; Harris would tackle any note." smooth after the Stirrers lowered their pitch, Sam hit anything above high C with what they called a false tone.

In Crain's estimation (and the recordings bear this out) Harris was flat-out a better singer than Cooke: He had a larger range, a sweeter tone, and, a pioneering way of phrasing that Cooke could solitary study. It tore right into Sister Flute His mode of speech was perfect for the 30- to 60-year-olds who came to house of worship after a long week's work and wanted a reminder of the old-time, countrified religion. Harris' aching tenor - learned, he said, by means of listening to the songbirds without on the Texas plains - spoke directly to the congregation's novel past.