The Very Best of Sam & Dave [Best of]

Sam Moore, born in October 1935 in Miami, started out singing with a gospel group known as The Melionaires, while David Prater, born in May 1937 in Ocilla, Georgia, began performing as a solo act. They met in 1961 and cut their first records together in 1962 for the small Alston label without success. Signed to Stax, their first few releases there also failed to dent the charts, including one of the tracks presented here [3].

In 1966 they broke through, sort of, when You Don't Know Like I Know peaked at # 7 R&B/# 90 pop early that spring. The follow-up Hold On! I'm A Comin' did much better, hitting # 1 R&B and # 21 pop in June, followed by Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody which topped out at # 8 R&B/# 64 pop in November.

Their next three hits - You Got Me Hummin', When Something Is Wrong With My Baby, and Soothe Me [written by Sam Cooke] - also failed to climb high on the pop charts, reaching # 77, 42, and 56 respectively, although each did very well on the R&B charts [# 7, 2, and 16]. But in the fall of 1967 they struck real gold when Soul Man charged to # 1 R&B [where it stayed for 7 weeks] and # 2 pop, kept from the top spot only by the phenominal success of The Letter by The Box Tops, and To Sir With Love by Lulu. I Thank You also did very well, reaching # 4 R&B and # 9 pop early in 1968, but after that they would never have another Hot 100 Top 40,

The only other hits they had which are not included here was the 1971 # 36 R&B cover of the Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds hit Don't Pull Your Love, which also "bubbled under" at # 102 on the Billboard Hot 100 for Atlantic, another R&B hit in 1974 - A Little Bit Of Good (Cures A Whole Lot Of Love)- which hit # 89 for United Artists, and The Sam & Dave Medley billed to Stars On 45 featuring Sam & Dave, a # 92 R&B in 1985 for the 21 Records label.

In retrospect, it would have been better had Rhino perhaps omitted tracks 3, 7 [the uncharted B-side to When Something Is Wrong With My Baby in early 1967], and 12 [the uncharted B-side to I Thank You in early 1968] and, instead, included three of the missing hits. Either that, or extended the compilation to 20 tracks in the first place.

With the insert are 4 pages of liner notes written by Eugene Holley, Jr., the text of which contains chart details where applicable, but no label information. The sound reproduction is excellent as are most, if not all, of Rhino releases.

David Prater died in a car crash on April 9, 1988 at age 50. In 1992 the duo was inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame.