Sam Cooke - Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963
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CD Details
Artist: Sam CookeEdition: Music CD
Format: Live
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
- Feel It
- Chain Gang
- Cupid
- Medley: It's All Right/For Sentimental Reasons
- Twistin' The Night Away
- Somebody Have Mercy
- Bring It On Home To Me
- Nothing Can Change This Love
- Having A Party
Music reviews of Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963
Music Review: The REAL Sam Cooke!
Rating: 5 Stars
Sam Cooke was one phenomenal singer. But not only did he sing like no other, he also wrote most of his hits, virtually ran his own recording sessions and had his own company. He could make that voice glide and soar and do loop de loops before making a clean landing. And unlike today's singers who want to blow you away by fiddling around with notes in such a self serving manner (not the song's) that all their tricks add up to nothing but vocal masterbation, Sam found areas to fly around in while never leaving the song behind. He's been my favorite singer for more years than I can rembember. However there was a time way back when his music hit a snag with me for awhile. Too lightweight, too cute, too... before soul, you know what I mean. I became hip to the fact that there was a live album on RCA, long out of print, that I had to track down. Surely, Sam Cooke "live" in front of an audience would reveal something else that was lurking underneath all those pop hits. Something that occasionally shone through in a phrase or note here and there. Something a little more gritty, a little more soulful, something less polite and sweet. It took a few years but I finally got my hands on SAM COOKE LIVE AT THE COPA (this was before the advent of the cd, and reissue-heaven). I put the needle down. My jaw dropped and my heart sank. I knew Sam straddled the teen/adult market in the early days of rock n roll, when an artist was either in one camp or the other. And that back then the Copa crowd was strictly for the "grown-ups" who belonged to the big band era sound of the '40's. And here was Sam, doin' "Bill Bailey" "The Tennessee Waltz" and "The Best things in Life are Free". Oh sure, he snuck in "You Send Me" and "Sentimental Reasons"(as part of a medley), managed to do a full version of "Twistin' The Night Away" and even dared to bring the folkie protest movement onstage with the then relatively new "Blowin in the Wind" and "If I Had a Hammer", the two most radical numbers of his set for this crowd. But it was clear his show never strayed too far from the supper-club formula of the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se. I just always believed that an audience really wants to see an artist do what HE does best. That thing that makes someone special. This was not the Sam Cooke I had envisioned, maybe I was hoping for something that didn't exist. With profound dissappointment, I put the album away and started losing interest in Sam Cooke. Fast foward a few years to the mid 80's and RCA releases something called LIVE AT THE HARLEM CLUB 1963. The words HARLEM CLUB got my attention and stirred my curiosity. Harlem Club 1963 surely meant an all-black audience for those days. I wondered, would this recording reveal the Sam Cooke I always thought existed? Could this be....? I bought the Lp, went home, dropped the needle down and anxiously listened. My jaw dropped and my senses soared. Here he was, IS, soulful, GRITTY, sweatin up a storm, steppin' out of his "Eisenhower" threads, crooning, RASPING his way through songs, HIS songs. Talkin', testifying, workin' the crowd, laughing & joking around like he was the greatest ENTERTAINER that ever was. (The only performer who I had ever seen do this "live" was Bruce Springsteen, who was never a great "singer" but a fantastic performer). But Sam is the whole package. And while you feel like you are there, it's not enough, you WISH that you were there. His voice here is silk and satin mixed with grown-up grit. Those wonderful, sweet G-rated hits now have a new ingredient, and it's a knowing R-rated attitude, no profanity, just a healthy sexual swagger permeating songs not only of the heart and mind, but of the body and soul as well. One of the greatest live albums ever recorded and a true portrait of the artist as a grown-up man. And RCA left this in the vaults for 20 YEARS!!!
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