Sam Cooke - Anthology 2022 (All Tracks Remastered) '2022

Tracks list

Tracklist:

01. All of My Life (Remastered 2021)
02. The Great Pretender (Remastered 2015)
03. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive (Remastered 2015)
04. Everybody Loves to Cha-Cha-Cha (Remastered 2021)
05. Whole Lotta Woman (Remastered 2015)
06. Blue Moon (Remastered 2021)
07. Far Away Places (Remastered 2015)
08. Win Your Love For Me (Remastered 2021)
09. Grandfather's Clock (Remastered 2021)
10. Love You Most of All (Remastered 2021)
11. Little Things You Do (Remastered 2021)
12. Mona Lisa (Remastered 2015)
13. You Were Made For Me (Remastered 2021)
14. My Foolish Heart (Remastered 2015)
15. Let's Go Steady Again (Remastered 2021)
16. Somebody Have Mercy (Remastered 2015)
17. They Call the Wind Maria (Remastered 2021)
18. You Send Me (Remastered 2021)
19. Secret Love (Remastered 2015)
20. Lonely Island (Remastered 2021)
21. Sugar Dumpling (Remastered 2015)
22. For Sentimental Reasons (Remastered 2021)
23. Baby, Won't You Please Come Home (Remastered 2015)
24. Wonderful World (Remastered 2021)
25. Mary, Mary Lou (Remastered 2015)
26. Summertime (Remastered 2021)
27. Solitude (Remastered 2015)
28. Chain Gang (Remastered 2021)
29. Out in the Cold Again (Remastered 2015)
30. Cupid (Remastered 2021)
31. Goin' Home (Remastered 2015)
32. Twistin' The Night Away (Remastered 2021)
33. God Bless the Child (Remastered 2015)
34. Sad Mood (Remastered 2021)
35. Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Remastered 2015)
36. Having A Party (Remastered 2021)
37. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Remastered 2021)
38. Bring It On Home To Me (Remastered 2021)
39. You Belong to Me (Remastered 2021)
40. Nothing Can Change This Love (Remastered 2021)


 Read Full BiographyHe was born Sam Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on
January 22, 1931, one of eight children of a Baptist minister and his wife. Even
as a young boy, he showed an extraordinary voice and frequently sang in the
choir in his father's church. During the middle of the decade, the Cook family
moved to Chicago's South Side, where the Reverend Charles Cook quickly
established himself as a major figure in the religious community. Sam and three
of his siblings also formed a group of their own, the Singing Children, in the
1930s. Although his own singing was confined to gospel music, he was aware and
appreciative of the popular music of the period, particularly the melodious,
harmony-based sounds of the Ink Spots, whose influence was later heard in songs
such as "You Send Me" and "For Sentimental Reasons." As a teenager, he was a
member of the Teen Highway QCs, a gospel group that performed in churches and at
religious gatherings. His membership in that group led to his introduction to
the Soul Stirrers, one of the top gospel groups in the country, and in 1950 he
joined them.

If Cooke had never recorded a note of music on his own, he would still be
remembered today in gospel circles for his work with the Soul Stirrers. Over the
next six years, his role within the group and his prominence in the black
community rose to the point where he became a star, possessing his own fiercely
admiring and devoted audience, through his performances on "Touch the Hem of His
Garment," "Nearer to Thee," and "That's Heaven to Me." The group was one of the
top acts on Art Rupe's Specialty Records label, and he might have gone on for
years as their most popular singer, but Cooke's goal was to reach audiences
beyond the religious community, and beyond the black population, with his voice.
This was a tall order at the time, as the mere act of recording a popular song
could alienate the gospel listenership in an instant. Singing for God was
regarded in those circles as a gift and a responsibility, while popular music,
rock & roll, and R&B were to be abhorred, at least coming from the mouth of a
gospel singer. (The gap was so great that when blues singer Blind Gary Davis
became "sanctified" -- that is, found religion -- as the Rev. Gary Davis, he had
to devise new words for his old blues melodies, and never sang the blues words
again.)

He tested the waters of popular music in 1956 with the single "Lovable,"
produced by Bumps Blackwell and credited under the name Dale Cooke so as not to
attract too much attention from his existing audience. It was enough, however,
to get Cooke dropped by the Soul Stirrers and their record label. Granted, that
freed him to record under his real name. The result was one of the biggest
selling singles of the 1950s, a Cooke original entitled "You Send Me," which
sold over two million copies on the tiny Keen Records label and hit number one
on both the pop and R&B charts. Although it seems like a tame record today, "You
Send Me" was a pioneering soul record in its time, melding elements of R&B,
gospel, and pop into a sound that was new and still coalescing at the time.

Tribute to the LadyCooke was with Keen for the next two years, a period in which
he delivered some of the prettiest romantic ballads and teen pop singles of the
era, including "For Sentimental Reasons," "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha,"
"Only Sixteen," and "(What A) Wonderful World." These were extraordinarily
beautiful records, and in between the singles came some early album efforts,
most notably Tribute to the Lady, his album of songs associated with Billie
Holiday. He was unhappy, however, with both the business arrangement that he had
with Keen and the limitations inherent with recording for a small label. Equally
to the point, major labels were knocking on Cooke's door, including Atlantic and
RCA Records. Atlantic was the top R&B-oriented label in the country, and Cooke
could have signed there and found a happy home, except they wanted his
publishing, and Cooke was well aware of the importance of owning his copyrights.

Thus, he signed with RCA Records, then one of the three biggest labels in the
world (the others being Columbia and Decca), even as he organized his own
publishing company (Kags Music) and a record label (SAR), through which he would
produce other artists' records. Among those signed to SAR were the Soul
Stirrers, Bobby Womack (late of the Valentinos, who were also signed to the
label), former Soul Stirrers member Johnny Taylor, Billy Preston, Johnnie
Morisette, and the Simms Twins.

Hits of the FiftiesCooke's RCA sides were a schizophrenic body of work, at least
for the first two years. He broke new ground in pop and soul with the single
"Chain Gang," a mix of sweet melodies and gritty, sweaty sensibilities that also
introduced something of a social conscience to his work. A number two hit on
both the pop and R&B charts, it was his biggest hit since "You Send Me" and
heralded a bolder phase in his career. Singles like the bluesy, romantic "Sad
Mood"; the idyllic romantic soul of "Cupid"; the straight-ahead dance tune
"Twistin' the Night Away" (a pop Top Ten and a number one R&B hit); and "Bring
It on Home to Me" all lived up to this promise, and also sold in huge numbers.
But the first two albums that RCA had him do, Hits of the Fifties and Cooke's
Tour, were among the lamest LPs ever recorded by any soul or R&B singer,
comprised of washed-out pop tunes in arrangements that showed almost none of
Cooke's gifts to their advantage.

Twistin' the Night AwayIn 1962, Cooke issued Twistin' the Night Away, a somewhat
belated "twist" album that became one of his biggest-selling LPs. He didn't
really hit his stride as an LP artist, however, until 1963 with the release of
Night Beat, a beautifully self-contained, dark, moody assembly of blues-oriented
songs that were among the best and most challenging numbers that Cooke had
recorded up to that time. By the time of its release, he was mostly identified
through his singles, which were among the best work of their era, and had
developed two separate audiences, among white teen and post-teen listeners and
black audiences of all ages. It was Cooke's hope to cross over to the white
audience more thoroughly, and open up doors for black performers that, up to
that time, had mostly been closed. He had tried playing the Copa in New York as
early as 1957 and failed at the time, mostly owing to his inexperience, but in
1964 he returned to the club in triumph, an event that also yielded one of the
most finely recorded live performances of its period. The problem with the Copa
performance was that it didn't really represent what Sam Cooke was about in
full; it was Cooke at his most genial and non-confrontational, doing his safest
repertory for a largely middle-aged, middle-class white audience. They responded
enthusiastically, to be sure, but only to Cooke's tamest persona.

In mid-1963, however, Cooke had done a show at the Harlem Square Club in Miami
that had been recorded. Working in front of a black audience and doing his real
show, he delivered a sweaty, spellbinding performance built on the same elements
found in his singles and his best album tracks, combining achingly beautiful
melodies and gritty soul sensibilities. The two live albums sum up the split in
Cooke's career and the sheer range of his talent, the rewards of which he'd
finally begun to realize more fully in 1963 and 1964.

The drowning death of his infant son in mid-1963 had made it impossible for
Cooke to work in the studio until the end of that year. During that time,
however, with Allen Klein now managing his business affairs, Cooke did achieve
the financial and creative independence that he'd wanted, including more money
than any black performer had ever been advanced before, and the eventual
ownership of his recordings beginning in November of 1963; he had achieved
creative control of his recordings as well, and seemed poised for a
breakthrough. It came when he resumed making records, amid the musical ferment
of the early '60s. Cooke was keenly aware of the music around him, and was
particularly entranced by Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind," its treatment
of the plight of black Americans and other politically oppressed minorities, and
its success in the hands of Peter, Paul & Mary. All of these factors convinced
him that the time was right for songs that dealt with more than twisting the
night away.

The result was "A Change Is Gonna Come," perhaps the greatest song to come out
of the civil rights struggle, and one that seemed to close and seal the gap
between the two directions of Cooke's career, from gospel to pop. Arguably his
greatest and his most important song, it was an artistic apotheosis for Cooke.
During this same period, he had also devised a newer, more advanced
dance-oriented soul sound in the form of the song "Shake." These two recordings
heralded a new era for Cooke and a new phase of his career, with seemingly the
whole world open to him.

At the CopaNone of it was to be. Early in the day on December 11, 1964, while in
Los Angeles, Cooke became involved in an altercation at a motel, with a female
guest and the motel's night manager, and he was shot to death while allegedly
trying to attack the manager. The case is still shrouded in doubt and mystery,
and was never investigated the way the murder of a star of his stature would be
today. Cooke's death shocked the black community and reverberated far beyond;
his single "Shake" was a posthumous Top Ten hit, as were "A Change Is Gonna
Come" and the At the Copa album, released in 1965. Otis Redding, Al Green, and
Solomon Burke, among others, picked up key parts of Cooke's repertory, as did
white performers including the Animals and the Rolling Stones. Even the Supremes
recorded a memorial album of his songs, which later became one of the most
sought-after of their original recordings.

The Man and His MusicHis reputation survived, at least among those who were
smart enough to look behind the songs, to hear Redding's performance of "Shake"
at the Monterey Pop Festival, for example, and see where it came from. Cooke's
own records were a little tougher to appreciate, however. Listeners who heard
those first two RCA albums, Hits of the Fifties and Cooke's Tour, could only
wonder what the big deal was about, and several of the albums that followed were
uneven enough to give potential fans pause. Meanwhile, the contractual situation
surrounding Cooke's recordings greatly complicated the reissue of his work.
Cooke's business manager, Allen Klein, exerted a good deal of control,
especially over the songs cut during that last year of the singer's life. By the
1970s, there were some fairly poor, mostly budget-priced compilations available,
consisting of the hits up through early 1963, and for a time there was even a
television compilation, but that was it. The movie National Lampoon's Animal
House made use of a pair of Cooke songs, "(What A) Wonderful World" and
"Twistin' the Night Away," which greatly raised his profile among college
students and younger baby-boomers, and Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes made
almost a mini-career out of reviving Cooke's songs (most notably "Having a
Party," and even part of "A Change Is Gonna Come") in concert. In 1986, The Man
and His Music went some way to correcting the absence of all but the early hits
in a career-spanning compilation, but during the mid-'90s, Cooke's final year's
worth of releases were separated from the earlier RCA and Keen material, and was
in the hands of Klein's ABKCO label. Finally, in the late '90s and beyond, RCA,
ABKCO, and even Specialty (which still owns Cooke's gospel sides with the Soul
Stirrers) issued combined and comprehensive collections of their portions of
Cooke's catalog. ~ Bruce Eder

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