During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Soul music star Sam Cooke laid the blueprint for many of the Soul and R&B artists who followed him. One of the first major Gospel stars to cross over into secular music, Cooke was also among the first Soul or R&B artists to found his own music publishing company. During a time when many black artists lost financial and artistic control of their music to greedy independent and major record labels, Cooke started his own record company, leading the way for other artists such as Curtis Mayfield to do the same. But it was Cooke's vocal delivery, which mixed a sweet smoothness and the passion of Gospel music, that proved the greatest influence on a number of major Soul stars, most significantly Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Womack, Al Green, and Marvin Gaye. Because Sam Cooke was...