Sam Cooke Called These 7 Musicians “Disgusting Sellouts” – Full List | HO

The music we love—those timeless anthems, those voices that haunt or heal—often comes from places of struggle, faith, and pain. But what happens when the very artists who shaped a genre see their art stolen, softened, and sold back to the world by others?

In the smoky lounges and backstage corridors of 1960s America, Sam Cooke saw it all. And he wasn’t afraid to call out the stars he saw as “disgusting sellouts.” This is the story of seven icons who, in Sam’s eyes, traded soul for stardom—and why it broke his heart.

1. Elvis Presley: The King Who Never Bowed

In the early 1960s, Sam Cooke and his wife Maria stayed at the Watkins Hotel in Los Angeles. It was there, in hushed conversations with friends, that Sam first voiced what many Black musicians only whispered: Elvis Presley, the white man in black clothes, had taken the sound but left the people behind.

Sam’s frustration wasn’t simple jealousy. He’d grown up singing gospel in his father’s Chicago church, music that was prayer, not performance. When he watched Elvis on TV—slick hair, easy smile, hips shaking—he saw the world eating up a sound born from Black pain, but refusing to acknowledge its origins. “They love the sound, but not the struggle,” Sam once sighed, pointing at the screen.

The wound cut deepest with “That’s All Right,” Elvis’s breakout hit, originally sung by Arthur Crudup, a Black man who died penniless. “Elvis made millions on that song. I got a few dollars,” Crudup once said. Sam knew the story. He didn’t want Elvis to be an activist, but he hoped for at least a nod to the people who made his crown possible. When Elvis stayed silent during the Civil Rights era, Sam called him a “polished puppet”—a man who performed soul, but never lived it.

2. Mick Jagger: The Imitator in Costume

Sam didn’t hate white people making Black music. But when he heard the Rolling Stones for the first time, he shook his head. “That young man tries too hard. And the harder he tries, the more artificial it seems.”

To Sam, Mick Jagger was playing dress-up—grimacing, rasping, and strutting as if he’d grown up in the same poverty and pain as the bluesmen he idolized. But Jagger had never been denied housing because of his skin color, never been turned away at a club’s back door. “He sings like he’s wearing a costume,” Sam told an engineer at RCA. The Stones’ covers of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters sounded “wrapped in cellophane”—sensual, maybe, but stripped of grit.

Sam once attended a party where the Stones were present. He glanced inside, then left. “That boy wants the blues, but the blues don’t want him,” he joked. The world cheered the Stones as “art,” while Black artists struggled for airplay. To Sam, Jagger was a symbol of the erasure of Black roots—“They learned the notes, but skipped the class.”

3. Aretha Franklin: The Queen Who Sold Her Crown

Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin shared a gospel foundation. Their fathers were both preachers, and Sam once sang in Reverend C.L. Franklin’s church. He called Aretha’s voice “the voice of God”—but as her career soared, Sam saw something change.

Atlantic Records packaged Aretha as the “Queen of Soul,” but Sam heard her voice being shaped for mass appeal—rawness edited out, silences filled with horns and handclaps. “You don’t sing gospel just because you used to. You live it,” Sam told an arranger. He felt Aretha’s music had become a product, her pain “recorded with three layers of filters.”

Sam never hated Aretha. His disappointment was paternal, not jealous. He saw her as a younger sibling who’d lost her way in the glare of fame. “She had a voice that touched God,” he said, “but God was no longer the audience.”

4. Ray Charles: The Genius Who Turned Away

There was no camaraderie between Sam and Ray Charles—just a heavy silence. Sam once said, “Ray sold soul for show business.” He watched Ray move from gritty soul to polished jazz, playing Vegas lounges for white audiences, the raw emotion gone.

Sam believed music was a responsibility. Ray, who once sang “Georgia on My Mind” with tears, now seemed indifferent to the struggles of his own community. “If you can’t see the children getting beaten in the streets,” Sam whispered, “at least don’t drown out their cries with your song.”

Ray’s success was undeniable, but to Sam, it was a success built on silence—choosing applause over activism, stage lights over the church’s flame.

5. Nat King Cole: The Velvet Voice That Went Quiet

Sam once idolized Nat King Cole. Nat broke barriers, playing with all-white orchestras and hosting his own TV show. But as time passed, Sam saw Nat’s music become “too clean, it becomes invisible.”

Nat sang love songs, never protest songs. He was polite, never political. Sam understood the price Nat paid—threats, insults, exclusion—but he couldn’t accept the silence. “He’s on air every week, but I don’t hear him talk about anyone but himself,” Sam said. In the 1960s, that silence was a choice. “As quiet as a sigh, too clean, it becomes invisible.”

Sam didn’t hate Nat, but he felt abandoned. “Music should not just be a way to get on television,” he believed. “It should be the echo of those who have never been heard.”

6. Diana Ross: The Poster Girl for Perfection

Motown was a machine, and Diana Ross was its perfect product. Sam saw it immediately—her image everywhere, her voice sweet enough for every household, but never too raw, never too Black.

“She’s not singing from the gut. She’s selling perfume through a melody,” Sam once said. He didn’t deny Diana’s talent, but he saw her as the first step toward a future where Black artists were loved for pleasing the majority, not for telling their truth.

Diana knew what she was doing, Sam thought. She chose the spotlight over the struggle, choreography over church. “She turned pain into a product,” he said. And that, to Sam, was a betrayal—not of him, but of the community that bled for every second of airtime.

7. Marvin Gaye: The Lost Heir

Sam once called Marvin Gaye “hopeful.” Marvin’s early music carried the purity of the church, the pain of the streets. But as fame grew, Sam saw him “playing hide-and-seek with himself”—his voice soaring, his heart sinking.

Motown polished Marvin, dressed him in suits, gave him love songs just sexy and smooth enough for the charts. “He could sing heaven, but he’s chasing something else now,” Sam said. Marvin had left his roots, trading pain for popularity.

Hollywood, Sam believed, wanted the voice, not the fight. Marvin became a beautiful voice, but increasingly distant from the spirit Sam believed in—singing to expose wounds, not cover them up. Marvin later made “What’s Going On,” a masterpiece Sam never lived to hear. One wonders if he would have wept, or simply turned away.

The Weight of Disappointment

Sam Cooke didn’t hate success. He hated compromise—the kind that blurred the roots of Black music, that made pain into a product, that erased the stories behind the songs. Each artist on this list, to him, was a symbol of a fork in the road: one path led to glamour, the other to truth.

His remarks were never born of hatred, but of heartbreak. “Nothing is more painful than seeing someone who once embodied hope now be the one who makes you turn away,” Sam once confided.

If these stories resonate with you—about music, fame, or self-respect—share your thoughts below. Like and subscribe for more untold stories from the hidden side of music, where a voice is not just a melody, but a legacy.

Full List:

Elvis Presley
Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
Aretha Franklin
Ray Charles
Nat King Cole
Diana Ross
Marvin Gaye
Music is more than notes and fame. For Sam Cooke, it was the echo of a people’s struggle. And he never let anyone, no matter how famous, forget where that echo began.