Not only is this one of the greatest live
soul albums ever released, it also reveals a rougher, rawer, and more immediate side to
Sam Cooke that his singles only hinted at, good as they were. Working with a merged band that included guitarist
Cliff White and drummer
Albert "June" Gardner from
Cooke's regular touring outfit and saxophonist
King Curtis and his band,
Cooke brings a
gospel fervor to these whirlwind versions, which are fiery, emotionally direct, and hit with uncommon power. Every track burns with an insistent, urgent feel, and although
Cooke practically defines melisma on his single releases, here he reaches past that into deeper territory that finds him almost literally shoving and pushing each song forward with shouts, asides, and spoken interactions with the audience, which becomes as much a part of this set as any bandmember.
"Chain Gang" is stripped down to a raw nerve,
"Twistin' the Night Away" explodes out of the gate like a runaway rocket, and
Curtis' sax breaks on
"Somebody Have Mercy" make it sound like the saxophone was invented for this one song alone. Throughout
Cooke's voice is a raspy laser that makes it obvious what
Rod Stewart picked up from this recording, and it is impossible not to hear
Cooke's voice looming behind
Stewart's once you've heard this amazing live set. Although recorded January 12, 1963, at
the Harlem Square Club in Miami in 1963,
RCA didn't release it as an album until 1985. The set was remixed from the original first generation three-track tape for 2000's
The Man Who Invented Soul box, and while the music (and
Cooke's vocals in particular) sounded much cleaner, much of the crowd noise from the 1985 mixes was toned down, robbing the recording of some of its claustrophobic, frenzied power. The mix used here seems to more or less split the difference, but the crucial key is and was always
Cooke's vocals, and while he was a marvelously smooth, versatile, and urbane singer on his official
pop recordings, here he explodes into one of the finest sets of raw secular
gospel ever captured on tape. It is essential listening in any version. ~ Steve Leggett
![Very Best of Jackie Wilson [Ace]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0029667191326_p0_v1_s90x140.gif "Very Best of Jackie Wilson [Ace]")
