Sam Cooke - Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964
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Free Music Notes for Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964
Free Music Review: Someone Finally Got It Right
Hit: 5 Stars
It took over 30 years, but there is finally an Sam Cooke anthology that presents a well rounded potrait of this amazing artist's many talents. "Potrait of a Legend" trumps all of it's predecessors by including a great deal of Sam's lesser known work that proves him to be able to "testify" with best singers of his generation including Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and James Brown. Previous anthologies were competent collections of Sam Cooke "lite", his lilting crossover hits with RCA hits. The crossover Cooke was one of the first black entertainers to acheive huge success in selling records in the previous impenetrable white pop music market in the early sixties. Cooke's genius was that he understood the type of music needed to break through and acheive crossover success. The calyso influenced rythyms of his early hits and the winesome quality of his voice was his port of entry into mainstream. These irresistable songs like "Chain Gang", "You Send Me" and "Cupid" are flat-out American classics that paved the way for a generation of country boy singers who embraced the raw testimonial style of blues and gospel singers.Sam Cooke had been there, and done that, with the incredible Soul Stirrers a gospel quartet formed in 1926 and joined by Cooke as a youngster in 1950. The Stirrers were a hugely popular group in the black community, playing churches and the "chittlin" circuit to enthusiastic fans. In the Soul Stirrers one can trace Cooke's evolving transformation from a talented apprentice "testifier", to a remarkable stylist with a voice so appealing that it spelled m-o-n-e-y to the A and R department of RCA records. Sam Cooke went "uptown" to tremendous success. "Live at the Harlem Sq. Club" is one of the few RCA records that documents of Sam Cooke's ability to embrace his gospel roots. "Night Beat" hints at it, but Cooke's intensity is muted by lumbering arrangements and over-production. With "Potrait of A Legend", we finally get Sam Cooke "Lite" and Sam the Testifier under the same roof, and the result is the real Sam Cooke.
Free Music Review: A pioneer of soul music
Hit: 5 Stars
Whether Sam really was the first soul singer as some people claim, I'm not sure, though he has a strong claim to the title. In any event, this is an excellent collection of his music.
Sam made his breakthrough with You send me, which went all the way to number one in America (where it sold a couple of million) though it barely made the top thirty in Britain. In the fifties, when music was often racially segregated, this was quite an achievement. Sam was well aware of the problems, as is clear from his song, A change is gonna come. The change did come (to some extent, at least) though Sam, murdered aged just 33, did not live to see it.
Another important American hit, Only sixteen, fared slightly better than You send me in the UK despite being covered by Craig Douglas who took the song to the very top of the UK charts. Sam's version of Wonderful world, another huge American hit, again only registered in the UK top thirty at the time of its original release, though Brits grew to love this song, with Louis Armstrong and Herman's Hermits both having big hits in the sixties. Sam's version made number two in the UK when re-issued in 1986.
Sam finally achieved success in the UK when Chain gang, Cupid and Twisting the night away all made the top ten. Only two more UK hits followed - Another Saturday night (which Cat Stevens covered in the seventies) and Frankie and Johnny (not included here), both of which made the top thirty. However, Sam had many more (and bigger) hits in his homeland, where his music was better appreciated. There are many other great songs here, too numerous to mention.
This is a better compilation than the earlier one titled The man and his music, featuring more tracks, extensive liner notes and even better sound quality. Many of the songs are the same but there are a few differences, although all the essentials are on both collections.
If you enjoy Sam's music, this is the best compilation yet released. If you are new to his music, you are in for a real treat if you buy this. Sam's role in the development of soul music cannot be over-estimated.
Free Music Review: Best Cooke collection so far
Hit: 5 Stars
The treatment of the music of the definitive soul singer, Sam Cooke, during the CD-era, at least so far, has fallen far short of his contributions. Complicating the situation is the split ownership of his catalog. The now out-of-print "Man And His Music" was a decent compilation of Cooke's charted hits but was deservedly criticized for some poor mastering and resultant less-than-optimal sound quality. RCA/BMG released a much better sounding "best-of" a few years ago but by then the later Cooke tracks controlled by ABKCO were not made available for that piece, leaving it as a frustratingly unfinished career retrospective.
This collection is from ABKCO and therefore contains those later recordings but fortunately and ironically, contains the earlier stuff, having been licensed from RCA. With all this ownership infighting overcome, we finally get a truly high-quality, well-executed overview of the music of Sam Cooke. From a sampling of his seminal early sides with the Soul Stirrers up through his pop and smooth soul golden age on the charts in the mid 60's, this piece represents a "must-have" for any serious or casual CD collection.
The generous 30 tracks in the best sound yet with many in stereo, the exceptions being tracks 1-3,5-7,9,10,15,30, is accompanied by an informative liner notes booklet with info on each of the included tracks. As a collector, due to their inane refusal to license anything they control to other willing CD producers, this reviewer bristles whenever seeing the ABKCO name, but credit must be given where credit is due. And here, Cooke's material gets the treatment it deserves. An absolute must.
P.S. As an adjunct to my comment about ABKCO in this review, finally(!) the company has loosened the reins on its Cameo-Parkway catalog and is granting access to its vast archives of early rock and roll-era music to others such as Collectors' Choice and Ace of the U.K.
Free Music Review: A Perfect Single-Disc Portrait of Soul Music
Hit: 5 Stars
James Brown may be the Godfather of Soul, but Sam Cooke created the genre--and no one has done it better since. His first charting single, "You Send Me," sold two million copies and was a No. 1 pop hit for three weeks in 1957. Cooke would go on to place 29 singles in the Top 40 (including three after his untimely death in 1964), and 22 of them are included on this collection.For fans who have been lamenting the deletion of the 1986 collection THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC, this new anthology is welcome news indeed. Not only does PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND duplicate all but five of that earlier collection's tracks (including the poignant "A Change Is Gonna Come"), the disc is playable as a regular CD and as a Super Audio Compact Disc. [I don't have an SACD player, but the sound quality on my regualr CD player is nothing short of stunning!]
Fans who were hoping for a generous sampling of Cooke's work with the Soul Stirrers will be disappointed. [And the title which includes the dates 1951-1964 would certainly lead you to expect as much.] However, the only Soul Stirrer's track is the gorgeous "Jesus Gave Me Water," recorded during his first sessions with the group just two months after joining in 1951. {Every other track was recorded between 1956-1964.]
Another plus to this new collection is the informative 32-page booklet. Author Peter Guralnick (who is working on a biography of Cooke) includes an essay and insightful track-by-track commentary on each song. Recording session information is included for every track including dates, producer, and musicians used.
The album closes with an uncredited 32-second interview. The interviewer asks Cooke to hum eight bars to show the listeners what soul sounds like. After he's done, the interviewer states,
"Sam Cooke's yours; he'll never grow old." He's right. ESSENTIAL
Free Music Review: The voice of an angel
Hit: 5 Stars
Sam Cooke's voice is so beautiful it makes me cry on some of the tracks, like "Summertime" and "You Send Me". Other times it brings a smile to my face, like when I hear "Wonderful World" and "Everybody Likes to Cha Cha Cha". Other times it leaves me feeling bewildered and angry; no song inspires this more so than "A Change is Gonna Come"--although "Let the Good Times Roll" is palpable in its desperation. This amazing body of work is beautifully arranged in this collection. Any artist that can make you feel all of these things within the space of an hour is truly not of this world.Sam Cooke's beautiful voice can be lighthearted, but throughout the course of hearing this CD I am constantly reminded of his brutal and untimely death. His killer was a bigoted South that he challenged and bemoaned in "A Change Is Gonna Come". It is hard to hear this song without weeping from the irony. Liner notes informed me that he wrote this song after his arrest for attempting to check into a white hotel. This song seethes with quiet fury yet manages to be dignified and hopeful in its powerful chorus.
If "A Change Is Gonna Come" is the most powerful song on the album, it is certainly not his only powerful song. Cooke's angelic voice, simple melodies and hauntingly beautiful lyrics will stay with you, even as you listen to the lighter, less serious songs like "Only Sixteen" and "Nothing Could Change This Love I Have For You". This CD is a wonderful tribute to a man who died much too young, leaving his listeners to wonder what else he would have accomplished if he had been permitted to reach old age.