ALBUM: Live at Harlem Square Club 1963 (1985)
MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$
I could listen to Sam Cooke sing anything. A telephone book? What’s that?
The menu at Olive Garden, maybe.
Lost too soon, Cooke was a soul singer who’s voice was smooth with a side of gravel. He could swing as evidenced by this wonderful 1963 music from the Harlem Club, re-discovered and released in 1985.
You want to ‘Twist the Night Away’, then take your handkerchief a round. Round and round. Now your dancing with the chicken slacks, er, the chick in slacks.
What if your baby been stepping out at least that’s what people say.
Sam says don’t get all violent about it, go home and tell her:
Honey it’s all right
Long as I know, long as I know that you love me
Honey, it’s all right
(And as long as she tells you it’s not true, he sings a little later).
But then again ‘You Send Me.’
Cooke’s biggest hit. He milks it at the Harlem: “I just want you to listen to this song right here.”
But, woo, it’s lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To marry you and take you home, whoa
I know you send me
I know you send me
Honest you do
Cooke could work a crowd. They burst out in singalong choruses nearly every song. Wish I was there.
Sam earned his chops on the gospel music scene with some magnificent God praising in a group called Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, which, if you’re into that kind of music, is some top of the line gospel.
Less than a year after this live show, Cooke was shot and killed in Los Angeles. Police ruled it a justifiable homicide, something the family has long disputed, according to a book by Fred Bronson called The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number.
This one was tough not to give a 5.0.
Counting my 678 vinyl records down before I die of brain disease.