Sam Moore, One-Half of Stax Records’ Sam & Dave, Dies at 89

Sam Moore, who with with partner Dave Prater helped bring the sound of the church to pop music with a string of call-and-response hits as the high tenor in the famed Stax Records duo Sam & Dave, has died. He was 89.

Moore died Friday morning in Coral Gables, Florida, of complications recovering from surgery, his rep Jeremy Westby announced.

Called “the greatest of all soul duos” by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted the pair in 1992, Sam & Dave worked with the songwriting/production team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter — and used Booker T & the M.G.’s and the Memphis Horns as their backing band — to produce a string of indelible rave-up hits from 1965-68.

Their combined talent produced fevered back-and-forth exchanges in “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” “Hold On, I’m Coming,” “You Got Me Hummin’,” “Soul Man” and “I Thank You.”

Along with labelmate Otis Redding, Sam & Dave were show-stopping live performers, electrifying Stax revues in the mid-1960s and fueling Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi to create their own Ray Ban-wearing homage as The Blues Brothers.

Born on Oct. 12, 1935, in Miami — where he first met his soon-to-be-sidekick in 1961 — Samuel David Moore was a church-reared singer who performed with such gospel quarters as The Gales and The Millionaires and once reportedly turned down an offer to replace a departing Sam Cooke in The Soul Stirrers. Moore and Prater, who was also an experienced gospel singer, crossed paths at Miami’s The King of Hearts club, where they were discovered by producer Henry Stone, who signed them to Roulette Records. 

Experiencing only minor success at Roulette, the duo’s career began to take off after they were signed by Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler in 1964, then “loaned” out to Stax to produce, record and release their records.

The pair’s November 1965 single, “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” launched a series of 10 straight Top 20 Billboard R&B classics, including “Hold On, I’m Coming” (1966), “You Got Me Hummin’” (’66), “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby” (’67), “Soul Man” (’67) and “I Thank You” (’68). A majority of those were written by Hayes and Porter.

The two, often at odds, broke up in 1970 with the end of their relationship with Stax. Sam & Dave’s off-and-on relationship continued until 1981, when they enjoyed a resurgence in popularity with The Blues Brothers’ cover of “Soul Man” in 1979. Their last performance together came on New Year’s Eve 1981 at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. Prater died in a car crash on April 9, 1988.

Moore launched his own solo career after breaking up with Prater the first time in 1970, recording several singles for an album at Atlantic that weren’t released for more than 30 years after the murder of the record’s producer, King Curtis.

Moore toured with other soul artists, including Wilson Pickett in Europe in spring 1982, when he married Joyce McRae, who helped him overcome a lengthy drug addiction. Moore not only went public with his addiction in 1983, he became a strong anti-drug advocate and worked as a volunteer for anti-drug programs. His wife remained his business manager until his death, working with him to advocate for artist’s rights, royalties and pension payments.

Moore found his opportunities as a solo performer apart from Prater waning, and at one point he sued Prater to prevent him from touring as Sam & Dave with another singer, Sam Daniels. Moore eventually formed an organization, Artists and Others Against Imposters, to prevent groups from deceiving the public by going out without their original members, testifying before Congress in 1989.

Moore performed on Don Henley’s Building the Perfect Beast album in 1984 on “You’re Not Drinking Enough” and two years later rerecorded “Soul Man” with Lou Reed for the film of the same name, reaching No. 30 on the U.K. singles chart. In 1988, he joined the Elwood Blues Revue, featuring Aykroyd and The Blues Brothers band.

Moore appeared in Monkee Michael Nesmith’s 1988 film spoof, Tapeheads, with Junior Walker as the “legendary” soul duo, The Swanky Modes. They later performed “Ordinary Man” from the movie on Late Night With David Letterman. The pairing represented a rare joining of artists from the Stax and Motown labels.

Moore toured Europe with Booker T & the M.G.’s, Carla Thomas and Eddie Floyd in 1990, and in 1991 he recorded several songs for Red, Hot & Blues with Republican Party official and avid blues guitarist Lee Atwater. That same year, he was the recipient of a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.

In 1992, Sam & Dave were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Moore bringing Hayes and Porter — as well as Prater’s eldest son, David Prater Jr. — onstage to share the honor. In 1992, Moore recorded several songs with major fan Bruce Springsteen for his Human Touch album and had a hit in 1994 with his Conway Twitty duet, “Rainy Night in Georgia.”

Moore continued to tour throughout the ‘90s, releasing “I’m a Dole Man” for presidential candidate Bob Dole to play at voter rallies, though the publishing company forced the campaign to stop using it. In 1997, he published his autobiography, Sam & Dave – An Oral History, co-written with Dave Marsh, which offered an honest look at his drug problems.

Moore appeared in Blues Brothers 2000, the 1998 sequel, as Rev. Morris, fulfilling a childhood dream of being a preacher and singing “John the Revelator.” He also had roles in Armsted Maupin’s PBS series, Tales of the City, as Rev. Willie Sessums and played himself in Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony.

In 1999, “Soul Man” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone would recognize the song as one of the 500 greatest of all time in 2004.

Moore’s previously unreleased 1971 solo album, Plenty Good Lovin’, finally came out in 2002, featuring Aretha Franklin on piano for the King Curtis-produced disc. He then appeared in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary Only the Strong Survive, chronicling his drug abuse. In 2003, he was a featured performer at Springsteen’s Asbury Park Christmas shows. 

Moore released his solo album Overnight Sensational, produced by Randy Jackson, in 2006, featuring cameos by Sting, Mariah Carey, Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Fantasia, among others. One of the songs, a cover of “You Are So Beautiful” featuring Billy Preston and Eric Clapton, received a Grammy nomination. That same year, he participated in a tribute to Pickett with Springsteen, Elvis Costello and The Edge as the closing performance at the Grammys.

Moore performed “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’” with Springsteen and The E-Street Band at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary concert in 2009 and sang at a George Jones tribute concert in Nashville in 2013.

In addition to his wife, he is survived, by his own estimate, the “14 or 15 children” he fathered by several women, according to an interview he gave to The Independent in 2002.

“I’m in touch with three or four of them; that’s sad when you consider there’s so many of them,” he said. “I used to crave connection with my children, but some have chosen not to make that connection, some of them resent me or want me to pay for them. I can understand that.”