Sam Cooke

Every time I think I've got a beat on Sam Cooke, that I know just where he sits in my personal pantheon, the guy reemerges in my consciousness and forces me to once again reevaluate, and once again upgrade, my opinion.

A little background: like most folks, I first came to know Sam Cooke through his big hits, a deep catalogue of mid-tempo love songs that generally fall into the I-IV-I-V or I-vi-IV-V chord patterns. Wading through such pleasant but lightweight fare as "Chain Gang," "Only Sixteen," "Wonderful World," and "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha," I was naturally floored by the quality of the guy's voice and singing but was equally underwhelmed by the material. I was ready to group him with Nat King Cole: massive talent with a pop career dragged down by middle-of-the-road songs and arrangements.

Then I heard Night Beat, a small-combo album on which Cooke sings a bunch of blues and torch ballads. I was floored; here, finally, was an album of material that reached the level of his talent. If you do not own a copy of this album, stop reading right now and get yourself a copy immediately. Seriously, I'll wait. [patient tapping of shoe]

Night Beat sent me searching for more such music; surely a vein producing such pure gold had to be just the beginning of a rich motherlode. But alas, it was not to be; there's just no other Sam Cooke album like it, at least not in print. At this point I figured I had Sam Cooke pegged as "that guy who made one great album and could have made a lot more if he had only been less attached to his hit-making formula." Which, in fact, extended the Nat King Cole anthology, as Cole's early trio recordings are every bit as breathtaking as Night Beat.

And then, just a few weeks ago, I saw this clip of Cooke singing "Basin Street Blues" on the Mike Douglas Show, and remembered once again what an astonishingly good singer he was. The experience compelled me to pick up keep movin' on (on which the song appears), a collection of the final 23 recordings of Cooke's career, and now, once again, I am reevaluating Sam Cooke. There's a lot of amazing material here--a nifty, up-tempo 4/4 reworking of "Tennessee Waltz," a great little "Shake"-like obscurity called "Yeah Man" (which Arthur Conley later revised and rerecorded as "Sweet Soul Music"--thanks to Mikey for this correction--ed.), "Good News," "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day," "Good Times," "Meet Me at Mary's Place," and of course the jaw-dropping "A Change is Gonna Come," Cooke's self-penned reaction to "Blowin' in the Wind" and the winner of that contest in a first-round knockout. The singing here is freer and more emotive than anything I've heard from Cooke except for perhaps his early gospel recordings with the Soul Stirrers. While you're buying Night Beat, grab a copy of this one too; hell, it's only $9.99, how can you possibly go wrong? You can't.

Perusing Sam Cooke's catalogue at the All Music Guide, I see a ton of Sam Cooke material that's out of print. I hope they bring it all out. I don't know how much higher my opinion of the guy can get, but I'm anxious to find out.