Customer Reviews

Keep Movin On

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It was difficult to ever find A Change Is Gonna Come on Sam Cooke's CD, but this one had it. Fantastic songs; all 23 of them. Sam Cooke was really special.

This is an excellent album containing some of the last recordings Sam Cooke made before his untimely death in 1964.

The sound is really good and the remaster has been very well done.

If you're a Sam Cooke fan, this one should be in your collection.

If you're not familiar with Sam Cooke, this would be an excellent introduction to one of the best vocalists of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Great album. Highly recommended.

This Cd gives you an idea of the kind of thing that Sam Cooke would have been recording had it not been for the tragic night of Dec. 11, 1964 (a little over a week before I was born, in fact). Much of this points to the future direction of Soul Music. "Yeah man" is clearly the original version of Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music." "Ease My Troubled Mind" could be seen either as a metaphor for Sam's personal problems at the time (his son had just died) or that of the Civil Rights Movement. "It's Got the Whole World Shaking" is one of Sam's lesser-known, but not lesser tunes.

"The Riddle Song" usually brings guffaws to most modern listeners because of the classic comedy scene in "Animal House" that involves this song (where John Belushi smashes the guitar of a terrible sounding folksinger who warbles the tune), but Sam's moving rendition brings the tune back to it's original dignity.

"A Change Is Gonna Come" needs no further elaboration from me, but "Keep Moving On" sounds almost like a sequel to "Change," somewhat of a less elaborate hymn to positive thinking. I strongly recommend that you play this song before you go to work or school, it will really put you in a good frame of mind to face adversity. One can only wonder why it was never publicly released after it was recorded in 1963. But in either case, listen and enjoy.

Legal and personal problems (not the least of which was the sudden drowning death of his infant son) kept Sam Cooke out of the recording studio for the bulk of 1963. When he finally returned there near year's end, he did so with a vengeance: A goldmine of new--and very strong--original songs, along with a handful of covers done his own way for good measure. It is those recording sessions conducted over the final year of Sam's life which comprise 90% of this outstanding--and phenomenal-sounding cd.
With the exception of gospel, pretty much the full gamut of Cooke's stylistic reservoir is tapped in this collection. If, for instance, dancing's your thing, "Shake," Good Times," "It's Got The Whole World Shakin'" and "Yeah Man," among others, will take care of you. (Note: The latter of those would later serve as an obvious musical and melodic springboard for Arthur Conley's classic "Sweet Soul Music.") If you want good soul-driven blues, "There'll Be No Second Time" and "Somebody Ease My Troubled Mind" will do you. There are tender ballads ("When A Boy Falls In Love"), and New Orleans-flavored r&b ("Cousin Of Mine" and "Basin Street Blues.") There are also two songs in this collection which were herebefore unreleased, the title track, and "I'm Just A Country Boy." The underrated Cooke original "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" is one of my favorite cuts: Sounds to me like one which could have been issued as a single and had some chart success. And of course, I'd be remissed if I didn't mention Sam's greatest artistic achievement: "A Change Is Gonna Come." The song was written both in response to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind" and Sam's observance of, and emotions about, the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the time. For me, however, over all the years and countless times I've heard it, this song gives me the same feeling I get from listening to Jim Morrison's lyrics on what turned out to be his swan song, "Riders On The Storm": I can't escape the feeling that somehow or other, the composer knew his time on this earth was near its conclusion. The soaring string and horn arrangements supporting Sam's foreboding lyrics and impassioned, melodramatic vocal on this song are breathtakingly, eerily perfect for the occasion: He never made a better record, and neither have many others.
As for the sound quality on this cd, it's a pretty stunning example of what modernday technology can do to nearly 40-year-old recordings. Even if you don't have the capacity to play the hybrid super-audio layer (and I don't), the crisp, clear sound of instruments and vocals alike that you'll hear on the regular cd layer far surpasses the way you've heard any of these songs before. I'm pleased that, as a follow-up to this cd being released in the remastered super-audio format, the 2003 Cooke career-spanning single-disck compilation Portrait Of A Legend was issued the same way. After many years of inferior collections of inferior (sometimes downright crappy) sound quality, it's good to know that the work left behind by the man who invented soul music is finally receiving its just due. In closing, then: If you've got SOUL in you soul, I think you'll find this cd more than just a commodity in your collection; you'll pay it a good number of visits, and consider it money very well spent.

Keep Movin'On shows that SAM COOKE PAID THE WAY OF RB TODAY.
THERES ONLY ONE SAM COOKE.

It's great to see all the praise this CD has received in other reviews, and I completely agree with everyone. Sam was a master of his craft, and in these late recordings he achieved new and greater heights than ever before. If only he had lived longer! One reviewer here said that with Sam, you always have one foot in church. How true! He even pulls spiritual pathos out of his party songs. Check out the gospel-style call and response of "Meet Me at Mary's Place" and "Good Times", in which "we're gonna stay here 'til we soothe our souls, if it takes all night long." Oooh! Then he can turn right around and make you boogie to a heartbreak song, as he does in "Tennessee Waltz", referring to his ex-friend as a "dirty dog" (NOT in the original lyrics). He throws in some dixieland jazz with the humorous "Cousin of Mine", in which a double dealing femme fatale gets caught red-handed, and attempts to persuade each of her men that the other is her long lost cousin. "Good News" isn't gospel, it's my girl's comin' home. Check out that banjo! "A Change is Gonna Come" has been well-praised by others here, but don't think of it just as a protest song or as something from another era. Think of it as being about you, today, and you'll feel its impact. This collection is the high water mark of a great career and a great man.

To me there are two catagories of singers; Sam Cooke and everybody else. I mean has there ever been a greater voice in popular music? In the cd "Keep Movin' On", there is some of Sam's best work. Let's start with the obvious "A Change is Gonna Come" may possibly the best r&b song ever recorded. Then you add such soul gems as "Good Times", "That's Where It's At", "Sugar Dumpling", "Meet Me ATt Mary's Place" and "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day", and you really have something special. On top of that Sam further displays the beauty of his voice with his eloquent rendition of the "Riddle Song". This cd also includes a number of standards and other Sam Cooke hits. I've heard all of these songs before except for the title song "Keep Movin' On". What a gift for all of Sam's fans...that song is absolutely awesome. There is not a singer today (or any other time) that can touch Sam Cooke. When you here Sam Cooke sing you have one foot in church. Compared to the "studio" stuff singers are releasing today Sam Cooke shows us why he was the MAN WHO INVENTED SOUL! Buy this cd and get ready for greatness.

It is obvious that when the "Man Who Invented Soul" box set was conceived, it was hoped that this material would make up its fourth disc. What we got, instead, was a disc combining "Night Beat" and "Live at the Harlem Square Club," which were nice if you didn't already have them... but I did! And of course, it meant that you got a career retrospective of this charter member of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame that didn't include the end of his career! The manager Sam hired to gain him artistic control of his own career, Allen Klein, now owns the masters that make up this disc. It's a shame that he and RCA couldn't find a way to make the complete package happen, but this disc (definitely) has anything else you could want, that is not on the box set.
So give a listen to "Good Times", "Good News", "Shake", and Sam's masterpiece, "A Change Is Gonna Come." The sound quality is excellent. A couple of big treats are "Yeah, Man", the song that so inspired Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music," that Sam was given a writer's credit; and "It's Got The Whole World Shakin'." I went into my first listen to the song (it's never, ever played on the radio despite being a big posthumous hit), expecting to hear some kind of a continuation of "Shake." I couldn't have been more wrong. Sam was known to keep a close eye on the latest trends, and 1964 had been a big year for a certain record company out of Detroit. So if you can imagaine Sam Cooke meets Holland/Dozier/Holland, get this disc and give "It's Got The Whole World Shakin'" a listen. It was the very last song he ever recorded, and it's pretty clear that the "It" Sam is referring to, is The Motown Sound! In summary, this is the disc you need to complete your history of Sam Cooke. If you have the gospel/early years Sam on the Legends of Specialty series, The Man Who Invented Soul box set, and this CD, you've got it all, on six fabulous discs!

I just love this man as a performer his voice just thrills I love my cd and can't wait for Sam's official website! thank you so much for sending my cd hassel free!

Sam Cooke is the greatest vocalist of all time. Period. I thought I'd heard every essential track, prior to listening to this latest release. Stupid me.

Cooke's fans tend to have their snoots in the air. We have discovered what "real" music should be. I've never met anybody, who had more than one Sam Cooke recording, that wasn't a complete music snob. I'll tell you what though . . . this guy could burn. Trust us. Convey a message? Yep. Chill with a drink? Yep. Shake the soul? Ditto.

These selections aren't his best collection. For my money, I go with the Soul Stirrers stuff. Whatever. This one is essential to any music collection. We aren't snobs. Well, maybe we are a little. Point being, Sam blows minds and could possibly cure cancer.