Coupé en Noir

Barry Adamson and the Last Words of Sam Cooke

Noir is politics without ideology
- Peter Maravelis, introduction to San Francisco Noir 2

Sam would walk past a good girl to get to a whore
- Bumps Blackwell

The killing of soul star Sam Cooke by Bertha Franklin at the Hacienda motel in LA on 11^th December 1964 was an event that revealed the fault lines in America’s racial, sexual and religious makeup in ways too complex and real to fit any ideology. The facts are, that Cooke picked up 22-year old Elisa Boyer at Martoni's Restaurant in Hollywood, and drove her to the Hacienda in South Central LA in his 1964 Ferrari, where he signed in under his own name (‘Mr & Mrs Sam Cooke”). That Boyer took almost all of Cooke’s clothes and ran away. That Cooke, whose blood alcohol level was double the limit, went back to Franklin’s office looking for Boyer, where he was shot once through the heart.

Boyer testified at the inquest that she only wanted a ride home and that Cooke had kidnapped her and attempted to rape her; she claimed to have taken his clothes by mistake when grabbing her own. Only a fraction of the money Cooke was said to have been carrying at Martoni’s, $5000, was ever recovered. Franklin had vice convictions and Boyer would be arrested for prostitution in a police trap soon after the coroner gave his verdict of lawful killing in self-defence; questions about her occupation had been disallowed in the coroner’s court. In 1979 Elisa Boyer would be convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of her boyfriend.
You can’t easily fit this true crime mystery into an ideological frame, other than note the racist implications of the lax police investigation. There are theories that try, but they are less credible than the organized crime theories, and those don’t have much to go on.¹ What it does read like though, is a short story from a noir collection. The hero’s fate is contingent, not on talent and years of work, not on wealth and success, nor even on his public activism, but on his private desire and an enticing woman’s own temptation to exploit it for a windfall.
It's Barry Adamson’s genius to see this story not only as the noir tale it is, the insight that a lifetime’s work in recreating spy film and noir soundtracks has prepared him for, but also as part of his own story; Cooke’s incautious lust as every man’s potential for capture by the wrong temptations, but also “what’s really making the world go round”, existing uneasily with old stereotypes about black sexuality that feed racial jealousy and mistrust, the animus behind the story of a lynching that Adamson scored in ‘A Gentle Man of Colour’ on 1992’s Soul Murder.
Noir resembles the gothic, with its supernatural, ancient and fantasy elements replaced by specific, individual, and pseudo-modern forms of evil and enchantment; both are reminders of the essential truths about life and human psychology.² The use of the tritone and related “evil” intervals in spy and noir music is only differentiated from their use in metal riffs by jazz styling. Cool jazz, the soundtrack to the high-water period of noir art, remains noir’s anachronistic signifier today.
Adamson scores ‘The Last Words of Sam Cooke’ in a 60’s rock’n’soul style; rather than the softer gospel pop arrangements Cooke favoured for his own songs, the reference point is the driving Stax sound of Booker T the MGs. The guitar solo has a clean telecaster sound like Steve Cropper’s, but inside this contained palate, everything is pushed as far as it will go, especially Adamson’s bass riffs, to represent the rush, and the giddy downwards pull, that’s he’s describing.

Temptation’s calling me loud and clear
She light me up and blow me away
King of lost souls on my knees and I pray
Cupid’s bullet loaded in her gun
Conquest feels like redemption
Angel singing a devil’s song
Don’t wait for heaven, cos here I come
That bad apple that tastes so sweet
Back seat girl knocked me off my feet
At the midnight Hacienda Blue
All of my love won’t save you
Ahh Lady you shot me
Lady you shot me

On ‘Whispering Streets’ from The King of Notting Hill, Adamson sounds more like Cathal Coughlan (a singer whom he resembles more than his old boss Nick Cave). Once again he’s finding autobiographical meaning in a noir story.

Need some loving' gonna go get me some
And shine my pretty light on everyone

But I hit retaliate
When they got to me
And then I woke in a scary bed
The twist of fate you'll never escape?

Well the worst neighbourhood is the one
Right inside of your head

I don't even know how the gun got in my hand
Five bullets, five names
and a contract worth five hundred grand
In a world full of nothing don't try to understand
Five bullets, five names
and a contract worth five hundred grand

I wasn’t over-familiar with Adamson’s music before because, though I appreciate Nick Cave the public figure and a few songs (that new version of ‘La Vie En Rose’ is excellent), I haven’t been obsessive about his collaborators. But I did note, in the biography of Cave I read some years back, that Adamson had an interesting story, dropping out of the Bad Seeds because fucked up by mental problems and drugs more than most. Which is relatable, and what he’s made of his art since is inspiring. In his 2021 autobiography Up Above The City, Down Beneath The Stars Adamson tells his story unsparingly, with only the slight distancing of noir styling, appropriate enough to the subject matter, to save him. And tells us how he’s felt about the music in his life, with such duende intensity that I feel it too.
In ‘Still I Rise’ from 1998’s As Above So Below a dark and industrial rap backing carries his beat poetry higher and higher:


God beams down from his Red velour chaise longue where he scans "Thigh High" magazine and just gets right on with the business in hand
His reverence is interrupted by the sounds of seduction
And keeping himself in check he screams "who the hell else is here, show thyself that I may be at peace once more" but…
Still I rise
"Who the hell else, who the hell else?" It is I Anaestheus, the king of lust, king of all that is unjust putting ideas into the minds of men
Chained to the tracks by their own desires and frittering away the choice to live amongst the most noble the most magnificent, the most that a man can possibly be but…
Still I rise

Here’s a man who’s released albums of soundtracks to imaginary noir films for decades, as well as contributing to David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) and scoring the forgotten Delusion (1991), which also features the version of These Boots Are Made For Walking Adamson recorded with Anita Lane.

‘The Last Words of Sam Cooke’ is the first single from a new Barry Adamson album, Cut To Black, due out shortly. He has my attention, he had me at “Lady you shot me”.

Algorithm of Suspicion - The Ipcress File theme, John Barry

1. If Boyer was setting up Cooke to be killed by a third party, she probably wouldn’t have needed to run away with his clothes.

2. “…the essence of Gothic culture is in understanding, accepting, and in some cases celebrating, the grim realities of humanity. In this context, human history is not something to be either outrun or returned to; it is simply the most detailed story of the unchanging facts of human nature. For someone who follows this philosophy, history doesn’t inform art; it is art.”

Dan Wohl, on Rasputina