Sam Moore, who 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.
Moore was the surviving half and higher voice of the 1960s duo Sam & Dave that was known for such definitive hits of the era as “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin,'”
Publicist Jeremy Westby said Moore died Friday morning in Coral Gables, Florida, due to complications while recovering from surgery. No additional details were immediately available.
Moore, who influenced musicians including Michael Jackson, Al Green and Bruce Springsteen, was inducted with Dave Prater into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
At the Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records, Moore and Prater were second only to Otis Redding. They transformed the “call and response” of gospel music into a frenzied stage show and recorded some of soul music’s most enduring hits, which also included “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” “When Something is Wrong With My Baby” and “I Thank You.”
