Michael Bay conjures 'Ouija' movie & other: July 2008

LOS ANGELES —

George Clooney just wants actors to get along instead of choosing between sparring unions.

In a two-page letter released Thursday, Clooney adopted a neutral stance in the dispute between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild.

"What we can't do is pit artist against artist," he wrote.

AFTRA has already reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. SAG wants AFTRA members to vote against the deal, saying its approval will handcuff SAG at the bargaining table.

Both unions' current contracts are set to expire Monday, leaving Hollywood on edge about a possible replay of the 100-day writers strike that ended in February.

Results of the AFTRA vote are expected July 8.

Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and others have joined hundreds of actors in signing an online petition urging actors to ratify the AFTRA pact.

Meanwhile, Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen and Holly Hunter have endorsed a SAG ad calling for AFTRA to return to the negotiating table to get a better deal.

Clooney called the fight counterproductive.

"Because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power" of the studios, he said.

Clooney also called on higher-paid actors to chip in a greater share of union dues and for 10 A-listers - "people that the studio heads don't often say 'no' to," he suggested, listing only Nicholson and Hanks by name - to sit down with studio heads once a year to "adjust the pay for actors."

SAG deputy executive director Pamm Fair called Clooney's letter valuable input. AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined comment.

See Also

Artist: Sam Cooke

   Genre(s):
Pop
   R&B: Soul
   Other

Discography:

Wonderful World: the Best of Sam Cooke

Year: 1995
Tracks: 12

One More River

Year: 1992
Tracks: 18

Wonderful World: The Best Of

Year: 1988
Tracks: 12

Live At The Copa 1964

Year: 1964
Tracks: 1

Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963

Year: 1963
Tracks: 9

Live At Harlem Square Club 1963

Year: 1963
Tracks: 1

The Man and His Music

Year:
Tracks: 28

Portrait Of A Legend: 1951-1964

Year:
Tracks: 31

Sam Cooke was the most important soulfulness singer in history -- he was too the inventor of psyche medicine, and its most popular and honey performer in both the pitch-dark and patrick Victor Martindale White communities. Equally authoritative, he was among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of the music business organization, and founded both a book label and a publication company as an extension of his careers as a vocalizer and composer. Yet, those business interests didn't forestall him from being busy in topical issues, including the contend all over civil rights, the pitch and intensity of which followed an arc that paralleled Cooke's egression as a asterisk -- his own life history bridged gaps betwixt calamitous and white audiences that few had tested to surmount, very much less succeeded at doing, and as well between generations; where Chuck Berry or Little Richard brought opprobrious and e. B. White teenagers together, James Brown sold records to e. B. White teenagers and fatal listeners of all ages, and Muddy Waters got young e. B. White folkies and senior black transplants from the South onto the same page, Cooke appealed to all of the above, and the parents of those ovalbumin teenagers as well -- yet he never lost his credibility with his core sinister audience.

In a sense, his attract awaited that of the Beatles, in width and depth. He was born Sam Cook in Clarksdale, MS, on January 22, 1931, one of octonary children of a Baptist minister and his wife. Even as a young son, he showed an extraordinary voice and oft american ginseng in the choir in his father's church. During the middle of the decennary, the Cook family moved to Chicago's South Side, where the Reverend Charles Cook cursorily established himself as a major figure in the spiritual community. Sam and trey of his siblings too formed a group of their possess, the Singing Children, in the thirties. Although his have singing was confined to gospel truth music, he was mindful and appreciative of the popular medicine of the period, particularly the tuneful, harmony-based sounds of the Ink Spots, whose influence could after be heard in songs such as "You Send Me" and "For Sentimental Reasons." As a teenager, he was a phallus of the Teen Highway QCs, a gospel group that performed in churches and at religious gatherings. His membership in that group lED to his introduction to the Soul Stirrers, one of the top gospel singing groups in the country, and in 1950 he united them.

If Cooke had never recorded a note of euphony on his possess, he would still be remembered today in gospel circles for his work with the Soul Stirrers. Over the next captain Hicks years, his role within the mathematical group and his prominence inside the opprobrious community rose to the point where he was already a sensation, with his own fiercely admiring and devoted audience, through his performances on songs like "Touch the Hem of His Garment," "Closer to Thee," and "That's Heaven to Me." The grouping was matchless of the upside acts of the Apostles on Art Rupe's Specialty Records label, and he might have gone on for years as their nearly democratic singer, just Cooke's goal was to pass audiences beyond the religious community, and beyond the mordant population, with his voice. This was a tall order at the time, as the mere act of recording a democratic sung could alien the gospel listenership in an exigent; telling for God was regarded in those circles as a gift and a province, and pop music, rock music & vagabond, and R&B were to be abhorred, at least approach from the mouth of a gospels isaac Bashevis Singer; the gap was so majuscule that when a blue devils isaac M. Singer such as Blind Gary Davis became "sanctified" (that is, institute organized religion) as the Rev. Gary Davis, he could still sing and play his old blues melodies, simply had to prepare raw words, and he never american ginseng the vapors words once again.

He time-tested the amnionic fluid of popular euphony in 1956 with the individual "Lovable," produced by Bumps Blackwell and credited under the name Dale Cooke so as non to attract besides much attention from his existing hearing. It was sufficiency, however, to get Cooke dropped by the Soul Stirrers and their record label, merely that freed him to record under his real list. The termination was matchless of the biggest marketing singles of the 1950s, a Cooke original entitled "You Send Me," which sold over two jillion copies on the lilliputian Keen Records label and hit number one on both the pop and R&B charts. Although it seems like a tame record today, "You Send Me" was a pioneering psyche record in its time, melding elements of R&B, evangel, and pop into a well-grounded that was newfangled and unruffled coalescing at the time.

Cooke was with Keen for the next iI years, a period in which he delivered up some of the prettiest wild-eyed ballads and teenager pop singles of the geological era, including "For Sentimental Reasons," "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha," "Only Sixteen," and "(What A) Wonderful World." These were extraordinarily beautiful records, and in 'tween the singles came some early album efforts, near notably Tribute to the Lady, his record album of songs associated with Billie Holiday. He was unhappy, however, with both the business enterprise system that he had with Keen and the limitations integral with recording for a small label -- every bit to the point in time, major labels were knock on Cooke's door, including Atlantic and RCA Records; Atlantic, which was non so far the outside conglomerate that it later became, was the summit R&B-oriented label in the country and Cooke nearly sure would have signed thither and found a glad rest home with the ship's company, leave off that they treasured his publication, and Cooke had seen the sales figures on his songs, as well as their popularity in cover versions by other artists, and was well cognisant of the importance of owning his copyrights.

Thusly, he sign with RCA Records, and then matchless of the three biggest labels in the world (the others existence Columbia and Decca), even as he organized his have publishing company, Kags Music, and a phonograph record label, SAR, through which he would make former artists' records -- among those sign to SAR were the Soul Stirrers, Bobby Womack (late of the Valentinos, world Health Organization were besides signed to the label), other Soul Stirrers extremity Johnny Taylor, Billy Preston, Johnnie Morisette, and the Simms Twins.

Cooke's RCA sides were a queerly schizophrenic body of work, at least for the first-class honours degree deuce days. He stone-broke new ground in down and soul with the single "String Gang," a strange mix in of sweet melodies and gritty, sweaty sensibilities that also introduced something of a social conscience to his work -- a number two murder on both the pop and R&B charts, it was his biggest reach since "You Send Me" and heralded a bolder form in his calling. Singles like bluesy, romanticist "Sad Mood," the idyllic romanticist psyche of "Cupid," and the straight-ahead dance tune "Twistin' the Night Away" (a bulge Top Ten and a issue unitary R&B reach), and "Land It on Home to Me" all lived up to this promise, and also sold in immense book of Numbers. But the first two albums that RCA had him do, Hits of the Fifties and Cooke's Tour, were among the lamest LPs always recorded by whatever soul or R&B singer, comprised of faded pop tunes in arrangements that showed nigh none of Cooke's gifts to their advantage.

In 1962, Cooke issued Twistin' the Night Away, a somewhat late "twist" album that became unrivalled of his biggest-selling LPs. He didn't actually hit his stride as an LP artist, however, until 1963 with the waiver of Night Beat, a beautifully equanimous, grim, dwight Lyman Moody assembly of blues-oriented songs that were among the topper and most challenging numbers game that Cooke had recorded up to that time. By the fourth dimension of its spillage, he was mostly identified through his singles, which were among the best work of their geological era, and had developed deuce separate audiences, among white teen and post-teen listeners and black audiences of all ages. It was Cooke's hope to cross over to the andrew Dickson White interview more than soundly, and open up doors for calamitous performers that, up to that time, had by and large been closed -- he had time-tested playing the Copa in New York as early as 1957 and failed at the time, mostly undischarged to his rawness, but in 1964 he returned to the baseball club in prevail, an upshot that besides yielded one of the most finely recorded live performances of its flow. The problem with the Copa performance was that it didn't really present what Sam Cooke was about in full -- it was Cooke at his most amiable and non-confrontational, doing his safest repertoire for a largely middle-aged, bourgeoisie patrick White audience; they responded enthusiastically, to be trusted, but only to Cooke's tamest persona.

In mid-1963, however, Cooke had done a show at the Harlem Square Club in Miami that had been recorded. Working in presence of a black audience and doing his "real" show up, he delivered a sweaty, mesmeric functioning built on the same elements institute in his singles and his best album tracks, combination achingly beautiful melodies and mealy soul sensibilities. The deuce live albums aggregate up the split up in Cooke's calling and the see-through range of his talent, the rewards of which he'd finally begun to realize more fully in 1963 and 1964.

The drowning death of his infant son in mid-1963 had made it impossible for Cooke to work in the studio until the end of that year. During that time, however, with Allen Klein at once managing his clientele personal business, Cooke did accomplish the financial and originative independence that he'd wanted, including more money than whatsoever black performing artist had always been advanced before, and the eventual ownership of his recordings beginning in November of 1963 -- he had achieved originative control of his recordings as intimately, and seemed equanimous for a breakthrough. It came when he resumed making records, amid the melodious ferment of the early '60s. Cooke was keenly aware of the music around him, and was particularly charmed by Bob Dylan's strain "Blowin' in the Wind," its intervention of the troth of black Americans and other politically oppressed minorities, and its succeeder in the men of Peter, Paul & Mary -- all of these factors convinced him that the clip was right for songs that dealt with more than twisting the night away.

The resultant role was "A Change Is Gonna Come," perchance the greatest strain to come out of the civil rights fight, and one that seemed to close and sEAL the gap between the deuce directions of Cooke's calling, from gospel to pop. Arguably his sterling and his most of import song, it was an artistic nonesuch for Cooke. During this same period, he had as well devised a newer, more advanced dance-oriented soul sound in the form of the song "Shake." These 2 recordings heralded a new geological era for Cooke and a new phase of his career, with on the face of it the whole world open to him.

None of it was to be. Early in the day on December 11, 1964, piece in Los Angeles, Cooke became involved in an affray at a seedy motel, with a fair sex guest and the night handler, and was The case is silent shrouded in dubiety and mystery story, and was never investigated the way of life the hit of a lead of his stature would be today. Cooke's decease shocked the black community and reverberated far beyond -- his single "Shake" was a posthumous Top Ten hit, as were "A Change Is Gonna Come" and the At the Copa record album, released in 1965. Otis Redding, Al Green, and Solomon Burke, among others, picked up key parts of Cooke's repertory, as did white performers, including the Animals and the Rolling Stones. Even the Supremes recorded a memorial record album of his songs, which is now unrivalled of the most sought of their original recordings, in either LP or CD variant.

His reputation survived, at least among those wHO were smart enough to front behind the songs -- to get wind Redding's performance of "Judder" at the Monterey Pop Festival, for lesson, and pick up where it came from. Cooke's possess records were a short tougher to revalue, however. Listeners world Health Organization heard those low deuce, rather inadequate RCA albums, Hits of the Fifties and Cooke's Tour, could only curiosity what the big apportion was nigh, and respective of the albums that followed were scratchy sufficiency to give potential fans pause. Meanwhile, the contractual situation circumferent Cooke's recordings greatly complicated the reissue of his wreak -- Cooke's business manager, Allen Klein, exerted a good deal of control, specially over the songs cut during that last year of the singer's liveliness. By the seventies, there were some evenhandedly poor, largely budget-priced compilations available, consisting of the hits up through early 1963, and for a meter at that place was even a telecasting compiling out in that respect, just that was it. The motion-picture show National Lampoon's Animal House made use of goods and services of a geminate of Cooke songs, "(What A) Wonderful World" and "Twistin' the Night Away," which greatly raised his profile among college students and jr. baby-boomers, and Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes made virtually a mini-career out of revitalizing Cooke's songs (most notably "Having a Party," and even part of "A Change Is Gonna Come") in concert. In 1986, The Man and His Music went some way to correcting the absence seizure of all simply the early hits in a career-spanning compilation, simply since the mid-'90s, Cooke's last year's worth of releases get been detached from the before RCA and Keen material, and is in the men of Klein's ABKCO mark. Finally, in the late '90s and beyond, RCA, ABKCO, and even Specialty (which still owns Cooke's gospel sides with the Soul Stirrers) each issued comprehensive collections of their portions of Cooke's catalog.

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