Wilson Pickett

[Kathy]

Hey, Wilson Pickett died! All the more reason for Mustang Sally to rock down the house at the F&H. FIRST SONG, FIRST SONG!

[MOSSE]

Kathy said:

Hey, Wilson Pickett died! All the more reason for Mustang Sally to rock down the house at the F&H. FIRST SONG, FIRST SONG!

I just heard that! That's a sad thing. And ALSO sad re: First Song First Song, because, I DO NOT THINK THAT'S GONNA HAPPEN! ;D

[barbm]

Oh, wow. Hadn't heard that.

Probably not first song...that's a later night warmed up voice song!

Bob! Warm up!!! :-)

[Skippydelic]

Kathy,
Yeah, I heard about that when I was at the store last night.

And he was only 64, too!

-Skippy

[cathi at work]

I heard it this morning also...so sad......

First song - i don't think that's gonna happen, but I will have my dancing shoes on for that one for sure, no matter when they play it

XXOO

Kathy said:

Hey, Wilson Pickett died! All the more reason for Mustang Sally to rock down the house at the F&H. FIRST SONG, FIRST SONG!

[harmony]

i guess he was in movie the blues brothers

[harmony]

More on mysterious death

a story about sam cooke



Cooke died at the age of 33 under mysterious circumstances on December 11, 1964 in Los Angeles, California. Though the details of the case are still in dispute, he was shot to death, apparently by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment, in a rage, wearing nothing but his shoes and an overcoat (nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, the two grappled and fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me," before finally falling, mortally wounded.

According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing confrontation and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.

A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.

Boyer's story was that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.

Boyer's story is the only 'official' account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question by many people. Due to inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses, as well as other circumstantial evidence, many people feel it's more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke, and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him, rather than in order to escape an attempted rape.

Ultimately though, the purpose of the inquest was simply to reach a conclusion about the shooting itself, not about exactly what had preceded it. Boyer's leaving the motel room with all almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide.

However, many believe that crucial details did not come out during the inquest, or were buried afterward. And many of Cooke's supporters and fans reject not only Boyer's version of events, but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder did in fact take place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder. To date, no solid evidence supporting such a conspiracy theory has been presented.
[edit]

Further readin

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke

[Keith]

The Midnight Hour, Mustang Sally, Land of 1000 Dances, 634-5789, Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, 99 and Half Won't Do... What great songs. Wilson Pickett is one of the main reasons why I was a bigger fan of the Memphis Stax records than of Motown. THAT was soul.