Sam Cooke – Harlem Square Club

Whether in stock, or just streaming in store, we’ve got you covered with real, human-generated recommendations straight from the store stereo. We do not receive anything if you buy. All recommendations are our own. (This for fun!)

Yes, I cribbed this one from the original Acceptable Oddities, but it’s simply too amazing not to talk about again and again…. After all, this isn’t the Sam Cooke of “You Send Me” and 100 other cool-crooning classics — this is a growling, mewing, soul-bearing beast. Never has the fact that a performer was watering it down for whitey seemed so abundantly clear.
Released the same year as James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club does the Godfather of Soul one better, backing the same brand of scorching swagger with an infinitely superior set of pipes. Whereas Brown and other contemporaries were focused on raw energy, Cooke courts a range of emotions, seducing certain notes and blowing the top off of others. In the end, his range proves as unassailable as his ever-pristine pipes.