Sam Moore, who as half of the 1960s R&B duo Sam & Dave sang gritty but hook-filled hits like “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I'm Coming,” died Friday in Coral Gables, Florida. . He was 89 years old.
His death was confirmed by his publicist, Jeremy Westby, who said the cause was complications from an unspecified surgery. Dave Prater, Moore's partner at Sam & Dave, died in a car accident at age 50 in 1988.
With Moore as tenor and Prater as baritone, Sam & Dave were one of the signature acts of Memphis' Stax Records, offering a harder, sweatier alternative to the more polished R&B sound that Detroit's Motown had turned into pop gold.
Sam and Dave were no strangers to the charts, however: in 1965, they began a four-year career in which they reached the top 40 of Billboard's R&B chart a dozen times and reached No. 2 on the Hot 100. all genres with “Soul Man,” which was written and produced by Isaac Hayes and David Porter and featured backing from Stax band Booker T. & the MG's. “Soul Man” won a Grammy Award in 1968, beating Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's “Ain't No Mountain High Enough” and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' “I Second That Emotion” to be named best R&B performance by a duo or group. voices.
Sam and Dave's other hits include “I Thank You,” “You Don't Know Like I Know,” “Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody,” “Something Is Wrong with My Baby,” and “You Got Hummin' me.” ”, which a teenage Billy Joel went on to cover with his group The Hassles.
“Most bands… could get away with doing a terrible cover of a Sam & Dave record and still get an incredible reaction,” Joel said when inducting the duo into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. “But they all suffer when you compare them with the original.”
For all they accomplished in the studio, Sam & Dave were perhaps best regarded as an explosive live act, known as Double Dynamite and the Sultans of Sweat.
Samuel David Moore was born in Miami on October 12, 1935 and grew up singing in church. He met Prater at Miami's King of Hearts nightclub in the early '60s, when Prater performed at an amateur night Moore hosted. The two formed Sam & Dave and worked mostly in obscurity until Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd, the creative group behind Atlantic Records, saw their show and signed the duo to a contract that had them recording for Stax, which Atlantic was distributing.
Moore and Prater, whose relationship was always more professional than friendly, separated in 1970 but reunited after each's solo careers failed. In 1978, the Blues Brothers (comedians John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) released a version of “Soul Man” that peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100; The renewed attention fueled Sam and Dave for a few more years until they played their last concert together in San Francisco on New Year's Eve 1981. (Much to Moore's chagrin, Prater later toured as Sam and Dave with a different singer , Sam Daniels).
In 1982, Moore married Joyce McRae, who also began managing his career and helped him overcome his heroin addiction. He went on to sing on albums by Don Henley and Bruce Springsteen and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2019. Moore's survivors include his wife, daughter and two grandchildren.
