This 23-song CD stands in Sam Cooke's output roughly where those four posthumous LPs (beginning with Dock Of The Bay) stand in Otis Reddings catalog, with the major difference that Cooke's work included far fewer leftovers and sides that were justified simply by being available -- he seemed to throw a special effort into almost everything that ever recorded, and that goes double for this disc's content, which encompasses the final year of his recording career. This was a period in which he explored several promising musical directions and broke through both to an extraordinarily sophisticated synthesis of his gospel roots with topical songwriting within a pop context. Listeners won't find his most popular songs -- "You Send Me", "Chain Gang", "Only Sixteen", etc. -- here, a result of the split control of his catalog between RCA and ABKCO, but they will find his most important and influential songs. Cooke was inactive in the studio for a significant chunk of 1963, following the drowning death of his infant son, and when he resumed work late in the year it was under a new contract that was to ultimately give control and ownership of his recordings to him (or, as events worked out, his manager, Allen Klein). Represented here is his foray into a New Orleans sound, on "Basin Street Blues" etc., which he'd never explored before -- and which he shaped his own way -- as well as his poignant recording of "The Riddle Song", which (according to Peter Guralnick's notes) was a way of his coming to terms musically with the death of his son; and "Good Times", the somber-toned party song of Cooke's that the Rolling Stones chose to cover, and the equally pensive and compelling "Another Saturday Night", a relic of the first half of 1963 that fits equally well with this later material. On any other r&b collection, all of those tracks would be perceived as extraordinarily fine records, but Cooke himself raised the bar so high during the final months of his career, that they pale next to the most important of his songs: "Shake", which embodied a harder, more visceral soul sound than Cooke had ever embraced before; and "A Change Is Gonna Come". The latter, written by Cooke in the wake of his hearing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind", seemed to tie up his origins as a gospel singer with all that he had learned and experienced in the ensuing decade and, channeled through the topical subject of civil rights, became his greatest musical achievement -- not his biggest hit, or his best known song even today, but his most accomplished piece of composition, singing, and recording. Cooke never had a chance to follow up either, and died before he could even assess the impact of either song -- ironically, it was Otis Redding (who died almost three years later to the day) that took them into his repertory most successfully, and kept them out there, on record and, in the case of "Shake", on stage as well; so this disc not only brings us to the final, magnificent phase of Cooke's career, but also shows the door that he opened for Otis Redding et al. Keep Movin' On should probably not be the only Sam Cooke compilation that a neophyte fan should buy, mostly because it covers only his late career and leaves out a lot of essential material, but it is an absolutely essential companion (along with the Harlem Square Club live disc) to the current RCA greatest hits disc or the 4-CD Man Who Invented Soul set, finishing the story that they start. Most of what's here was never on CD before and hasn't been available on vinyl in the US since the 1960's, and even the tracks that have been out before are improved so significantly in the quality of their transfer to CD, that they're like new releases, and they're accompanied by superb annotation.
One of the best MP3 blogs around is Soul Sides, and I have been promoting it on my site for a while now. There is a post up there now that I couldn't help but surface for you...First about Soul Sides...if you love vintage R&B, Soul, Funk, etc as well as the history of the era that birthed so much of that music I cannot encourage you enough to bookmark their site or subscribe to their feed. So t...
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We all love covers. Good, bad, middling, it doesn't matter. Here are a couple of brand new ones that may be of interest to you.First, Cory Chise l has released a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come". You can get your free copy of the MP3 here: DOWNLOADYou can read my review of Cory's Cabin Ghosts EP here .Second, Audrye Sessions have released a cover of Elliott Smith's "Waltz #2"....
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I know that we all feel an impending sense of change. I'm definitely feeling it right on the cusp of this year. Good or bad something is going to change. It's inevitable! So I checked my songs of change to see what I might post. I'm not posting Tears For Fears or David Bowie but I really like these songs I'm posting. I might be a little awol for a week or two on Mog and I thought that I shou
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There are no shortage of A Change is Gonna Come covers. Some are better than others and given etymology of the track - Sam Cooke was reportedly inspired by Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind and his interaction with civil rights activists - it seems like an appropriate time to hear another. Cory Chisel's version is pretty [...]
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(This concludes the Politiko series of Sevens: a feature on Aquarium Drunkard that pays tribute to the art of the individual song. Go vote.) Sam Cooke was astounded by Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." Seriously. "Geez, a white boy writing a song like that," Cooke commented. Though it wasn't so much [...]
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Sam Cooke is probably best known for his pop standards "Wonderful World," "Chain Gang," and "Twistin' the Night Away," among others. His delicate, yet robust and earthy vocal performances were a signature, and he sits amongst legendary soul singers as Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown. But there's one song on this compilation that towers above all the other hits. As the story would...
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How ironic that our song of the week is the sample for this new track from Charles Hamilton, Asher Roth, and B.O.B.? I may be an oldhead, but I prefer the original. This works though. If you haven't voted, make sure you do that ish tomorrow! Our voices must be heard! DOWNLOAD No Tags---Related Articles at Kevin|Nottingham: This [...]
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One of the best MP3 blogs around is Soul Sides, and I have been promoting it on my site for a while now. There is a post up there now that I couldn't help but surface for you...First about Soul Sides...if you love vintage R&B, Soul, Funk, etc as well as the history of the era that birthed so much of that music I cannot encourage you enough to bookmark their site or subscribe to their feed. So t...
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These songs are posted with limited commentary because a) you're all ready and b) the songs say everything I could hope to. You're ready for change. You can feel it in the air. There is a restlessness all around you, and you're right there in it. I could barely sleep last [...]
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 "Keep Movin' On")
