Should we use you instead, the guy who said that Sam Cooke was the first rock artist to own a record label?

Get your facts straight, Bruce. I said "He was the first rock artist to operate his own label and publishing company". That is accurate. When you typically misread what I stated, I added that Ivory Joe Hunter had owned two labels in the 40's, and as you pointed out others had as well. Since I knew this and was the one who later brought it up, why you'd think I'd claim otherwise in a post about Cooke is beyond me, but you see all sorts of wild conspiracies lurking in the shadows. My original point was that Cooke oversaw EVERYTHING about his label, acting as A&R director, producing the sessions, writing the songs, handling distribution and overseeing the publishing, in other words, being financially independent in every way. No other rock artist that I can find did all of that before Cooke. The one who comes closest to that before him was Johnny Otis.

So it wasn't solely about ownership of the label, but the entire ball of wax, something that was clear in my original post.

Besides, since Big Joe Turner is unquestionably a rock artist and since Wikipedia claims otherwise, they're factually wrong, footnotes or not. Yet by using them as a source to claim Turner is not qualified for a Top 100 spot means you're essentially giving credence to someone else's entirely subjective (and inaccurate) "opinion" of what constitutes rock 'n' roll music. That's hardly something that should be encouraged around here considering how long it's taken for people to actually view rock from an historically correct perspective.

My original point was that Cooke oversaw EVERYTHING about his label, acting as A&R director, producing the sessions, writing the songs, handling distribution and overseeing the publishing, in other words, being financially independent in every way. No other rock artist that I can find did all of that before Cooke. The one who comes closest to that before him was Johnny Otis.

He was the first rock artist to operate his own label and publishing company

Which is why I brought up Johnny Otis.

I was even thinking about bringing up Bill Haley's Clymax label.

The comment in bold makes it much clearer to me what you were trying to get at.

On the popular musical landscape, Frank Sinatra started Reprise Records in 1960.

something that was clear in my original post.

Yeah, I also brought up Johnny Otis before, including today

I've never heard that one.

I added an explanation to the criteria to the first post. For musical impact, cultural impact, and influence, I used Sampson's words verbatim. I mostly used his language for commercial impact also, but tweaked it a bit. I also decided that as there are often cases where the criteria creates a virtual tie between 2 artists, worldwide popularity can be used as a tiebreaker, so I added a sentence to that effect.