Sam Cooke has been called the inventor of Soul music and those that followed him – Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Bill Withers, James Brown, Billy Paul, Bobby Womack and many many more may not have enjoyed their own successes if it wasn’t for him.

Between 1956 and 1964 Cooke had 29 US Top 40 singles. A Change Is Gonna Come has been heralded as a classic civil rights anthem. Appearing first on Ain’t That Good News, Cooke’s last album released in 1964, it was also released posthumously as the B-side of Shake and reached No. 31 in the US charts. It was allegedly written after Cooke was refused entry into a whites only hotel in Louisiana.

In a controversy that is still debated to this day, Cooke was shot and killed by the manager of a Los Angeles motel in an altercation involving inebriation, nakedness, violence and another woman that fled Cooke’s motel room claiming she had been kidnapped. A terrible tragedy unfolded that night and the world lost one of Soul Music’s great voices and songwriters – he was just 33 years old.

I was born by the river in a little tent
Ohh and just like the river I’ve been running ev’r since
It’s been a long time, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there, beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep tellin’ me don’t hang around
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin’ me
Back down on my knees, ohh

There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Change_Is_Gonna_Come

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_That_Good_News_(album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke_discography