Artist: Sam Cooke
Album: Live at the Harlem Square Club
Year: 1963
Sam Cooke is allegedly one of the original soul singers, with artists like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye following in his footsteps. Live at the Harlem Square Club features Cooke in an energetic and tuneful set.
I'm really quite confused about what constitutes "soul" music at this point. The entire time I was listening to this Cooke album, I was thinking about Otis Day & The Knights of Animal House fame. The other day, I listened to Green Onions by Booker T and the M.G.'s and that was supposedly a soul classic. That was an instrumental novelty album compared with this one.
Anyway, I liked Cooke quite a bit on this record. He was certainly a wildly dynamic performer. "Twistin' the Night Away" and "Having a Party" are great tunes. I felt like Cooke was somehow the love-child of Little Richard and Ray Charles, taking the good qualities from each. It's got that unbridled enthusiasm of Little Richard and the effortless smoothness of Charles.
I can't say I would ever willingly choose to listen to this album again, but I enjoyed giving it a spin.
Rating: Worth a listen
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