Sam Cooke Joined Soul Stirrers at the age of fifteen and served as lead vocalist from 1950 to 1956. He recorded his first pop song, “Lovable.” Cooke’s first solo successes came on the Keen label, for which he recorded “You Send Me.” Sam Cooke came to be in the fifties and sixties. Cooke’s pure, elegant crooning was widely imitated, and both his voice and suave, sophisticated image influenced generations of soul men. In the fifties and sixties, Sam Cooke helped invent soul music by merging gospel sounds with secular themes. Cooke was set out to be “One of the first inductees into Rock and Roll hall of fame in 1986; three years later the Soul Stirrers entered separately.”(Rolling Stone). The entered separately because he wasn't with them anymore.