Tonight on PBS, Sam Cooke Brings It Home

Tonight on PBS, a look at the velvet-voiced star who helped break the pop music color barrier with his gospel-infused R&B in "'Sam Cooke: Crossing Over'":http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/sam-cooke/crossing-over/1506/. Cooke's sensual sound made him the first black artist to score number one hits on both the R&B and the pop music charts. He made gospel sound sexy and pop sound soulful. And he composed "one of the most important anthems of the civil rights movement":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQU4torUz-Q before his violent death at the age of 32 in 1964. Tonight's "American Masters":http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ documentary includes interviews with James Brown, Billy Preston, Lou Rawls and Muhammad Ali, among many others. **Watch the trailer:** **Listen to Cooke's "(Somebody) Ease my Troublin' Mind":**