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Sam Cooke: Greatest Hits

Album Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic.com:
Although it isn’t as sublime as the definitive The Man and His Music, Greatest Hits still does a good job of rounding up the majority of Sam Cooke’s biggest pop hits. Ironically, it doesn’t have enough gospel or R&B cuts, skipping over such essentials as “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” “Ain’t That Good News,” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” in favor of such pop hits as “Sugar Dumpling.” However, it has just enough songs that aren’t on The Man and His Music to make it worth exploring for fans who haven’t been able to hear some of this material before, since some of these songs had been out of print for years. Nevertheless, the curious and the novice should be aware that this is not a good introduction to Sam Cooke, because it doesn’t provide a full portrait of his career and it overlooks too many necessary songs.

The Rolling Stones: Rock & Roll Circus (CD)

The most interesting archival release of The Rolling Stones since More Hot Rocks, 20 years ago, and the first issue of truly unreleased material by the Stones from this period. And the Stones have some competition from the Who, Taj Mahal, and John Lennon on the same release.

Filmed and recorded on December 10-11, 1968, at a North London studio, Rock and Roll Circus has been, as much as the Beach Boys’ Smile, “the one that got away” for most ’60s music enthusiasts. The Jethro Tull sequence is the standard studio track, but the rest — except for the Stones’ “Salt of the Earth” — is really live. The Who’s portion has been out before, courtesy of various documentaries, but Taj Mahal playing some loud electric blues is new and great, the live Lennon rendition of “Yer Blues” is indispensable, and the Stones’ set fills in lots of blanks in their history — “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in one of two live renditions it ever got with Brian Jones in the lineup, “Sympathy for the Devil” in an intense run-through, “Parachute Woman” as a lost live vehicle for the band, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as a show-stopping rocker even without its extended ending (no Paul Buckmaster choir), and “No Expectations” as their first piece of great live blues since “Little Red Rooster.” It’s a must-own, period.

 

Album Review by Bruce Eder,  AllMusic.com

The Rhythm and the Blues

Album Review by Richie Unterberger, AllMusic.com:
From the title, you might infer that this 20-track compilation — taken from early-’60s sessions, and principally composed of LP-only cuts — aims to showcase Cooke’s most soulful side. That’s true to some degree, but this isn’t his funkiest stuff; for that, look to Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963, or even his most up-tempo singles. Most of this is, in fact, suave pop/R&B, the emphasis sometimes falling on the pop, with lightly swinging, jazzy arrangements, and some orchestration. Cooke didn’t write most of the material here, and while “Little Red Rooster” (a hit single) represents the earthiest extreme that the CD touches upon, there are also quite a few songs that were originally performed by jazz/popsters from the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s. Certainly these are decent offerings; Cooke’s a great singer and interpreter, and the arrangements are smooth without being overdone. But it’s neither Cooke at his very best (the hits compilation Man and His Music is much better), or his grittiest (that honor belongs to Harlem Square). It does restore much of his better obscure material to wide availability, and is recommended to those who have the above-mentioned albums and want more Cooke, although the 1963 LP Night Beat (reissued on CD in 1995) is a bluesier and better one to check out first.

Singles Collection: The London Years (Box Set)

The three-disc box set Singles Collection: The London Years contains every single the Rolling Stones released during the ’60s, including both the A- and B-sides. It is the first Stones compilation that tries to be comprehensive and logical — for all their attributes, the two Hot Rocks sets and the two Big Hits collections didn’t present the singles in chronological order. In essence, the previous compilations were excellent samplers, where Singles Collection tells most of the story (certain albums, like Aftermath, Beggars Banquet, and Let It Bleed, fill in the gaps left by the singles). The Rolling Stones made genuine albums — even their early R&B/blues albums were impeccably paced — but their singles had a power all their own, which is quite clearly illustrated by the Singles Collection. By presenting the singles in chronological order, the set takes on a relentless, exhilarating pace with each hit and neglected B-side piling on top of each other, adding a new dimension to the group; it has a power it wouldn’t have had if it tried to sample from the albums. Although it cheats near the end, adding singles from the Metamorphosis outtakes collection and two singles from Sticky Fingers, this captures the essence of the ’60s Stones as well as any compilation could. Casual fans might want to stick with the Hot Rocks sets, since they just have the hits, but for those that want a little bit more, the Singles Collection is absolutely essential.

Album Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

AllMusic.com

Marianne Faithfull’s Greatest Hits

An excellent 16-song distillation of her ’60s recordings. Which includes all of Marianne Faithfull‘s UK and US hits — “As Tears Go By,” “This Little Bird,” “Summer Nights,” and “Come and Stay With Me.” Bonuses include “In My Time of Sorrow,” an obscure mid-’60s folk-rocker co-written by Jackie DeShannon and Jimmy Page, and her 1969 single “Sister Morphine” (co-written with the Rolling Stones), predating the Sticky Fingers version; it’s easily her most powerful performance of the decade.

Someday We’ll All Be Free

Bobby Womack’s 1985 album Someday We’ll All Be Free, re-released digitally on June 15, 2010 has not been legitimately available for more than ten years and is considered a coda of sorts to Womack’s epochal The Poet and The Poet II. Sessions for those two albums, originally released on the Beverly Glen label, are actually the source of the repertoire heard on Someday We’ll All Be Free. ABKCO acquired the Beverly Glen Bobby Womack masters in 2008 and re-released The Poet I & II that year.

Someday We’ll All Be Free takes its title from the Donny Hathaway song that kicks off the album that also includes Womack’s version of “Searching For My Love,” Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces’ 1966 hit. Womack’s original compositions included are “I’m So Proud,” “Gifted One,” “Falling In Love Again,” and “I Wish I Had Someone To Come Home To,” the latter a collaboration between Bobby Womack and his brother Cecil who were members of The Valentinos, the group that spawned “It’s All Over Now, “ the very first hit for the Rolling Stones. “I Wish I Had Someone To Come Home To” was produced by Bobby Womack, James Gadson and Andrew Loog Oldham, who was the original producer and manger of the Rolling Stones. The other tracks on the album were produced by Bobby Womack and Patrick Motin.

It is intentional that the album and its title track will be available on the Tuesday that precedes “Juneteenth” during Black Music Month. Juneteenth, also referred to as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, is the longest running nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States and is recognized by 36 U.S. states and is celebrated by people of all ethnic backgrounds. Womack commented, “Free your mind and your heart will follow, freedom is precious and a basic human right; I’m so glad to have celebrated it in song back when I made these recordings.”

One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live At The Harlem Square, 1963 (RCA)

For anyone who thought they knew Sam Cooke’s music based on the hit singles, this disc will be a revelation. This is the real Sam Cooke, doing a sweaty, raspy soulful set at the Harlem Square Club in North Miami, FL, on Jan. 12, 1963, backed by King Curtis and his band, a handful of local musicians, and Cooke’s resident sidemen, guitarist Clifford White and drummer Albert “June” Gardner. To put it simply, it’s one of the greatest soul records ever cut by anybody, outshining James Brown’s first live album from the Apollo Theater and easily outclassing Jackie Wilson’s live record from the Copa. Cooke’s pop style is far removed from the proceedings here, which have the feel of being virtually a secular sermon. The record opens with the frantic, desperate chant-like “Feel It,” followed by a version of “Chain Gang” that has all of the gentling influences of the single’s string accompaniment stripped from it — Cooke’s slightly hoarse voice only adds to the startling change in the song, transformed from a piece of pop-soul into an in-your-face ode to freedom and release. “Cupid,” perhaps the most sweetly textured song that Cooke cut during the 1960s, gets the full soul treatment, with horns and Curtis’ sax up front and Cooke imparting an urgency here that’s only implied in the studio rendition. “Twistin’ the Night Away” gets two hot King Curtis sax solos, the highlights of a pounding, rippling performance with a beautifully vamped extended ending (with the drums, bass, and White’s guitar wrapping themselves ever tighter around the central riff) that never would have made it to the floor of the Copa. “Somebody Have Mercy” leads into a long vamp by Cooke, a brief, soaring quotation from “You Send Me” that could easily have been a high point in sheer intensity — and then Cooke and the band crank the tension and the spirits several notches higher with the greatest version of “Bring It on Home to Me” ever done by anybody. It all ends with a version of “Having a Party” that manages to be both soothing and wrenching at the same time, Cooke luxuriating in every nuance as the crowd joins in singing, reaching a higher pitch to the gently swinging tune, the drums kicking in harder, the rhythm guitar rising up, and Curtis’ sax and the horns rising up slowly while Cooke goes on with his singing, which is more like preaching and the group sounds like it could play the riff all night. It’s one of the cruel ironies of the recording business that this unique and extraordinary concert recording went unreleased for almost 22 years, in favor of the more polished (but also more antiseptic and duller) Sam Cooke at the Copa.

The Poet II

A career pinnacle for Bobby Womack was achieved in the 1980s with the release of the albums THE POET and THE POET II. These evocative records yielded numerous hits including “Where Do We Go From Here,” “Secrets,” “It Takes A Lot of Strength To Say Goodbye,” “Love Has Finally Come At Last,” “Tell Me Why” “If You Think You’re Lonely Now,” and others. “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” was the basis for Mariah Carey’s #1 hit “We Belong Together.” Womack has also recorded Snoop Dogg, Rod Stewart and host of other top names. ABKCO Records has released both albums as THE POET I & II, combined on one CD and in their original album format as THE POET I and THE POET II for digital release.

The Poet

A career pinnacle for Bobby Womack was achieved in the 1980s with the release of the albums THE POET and THE POET II. These evocative records yielded numerous hits including “Where Do We Go From Here,” “Secrets,” “It Takes A Lot of Strength To Say Goodbye,” “Love Has Finally Come At Last,” “Tell Me Why” “If You Think You’re Lonely Now,” and others. “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” was the basis for Mariah Carey’s #1 hit “We Belong Together.” Womack has also recorded Snoop Dogg, Rod Stewart and host of other top names. ABKCO Records has released both albums as THE POET I & II, combined on one CD and in their original album format as THE POET I and THE POET II for digital release.