Essential Magic Sam: Cobra & Chief Recordings 1957-1961 [Original recording remastered]

Magic Sam | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 27, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1957
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B000059RVO
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,135 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. All Your Love

2. Love Me With a Feeling

3. Everything Gonna Be Alright

4. Look Whatcha Done

5. All Night Long

6. All My Whole Life

7. Easy Baby

8. 21 Days in Jail

9. Love Me This Way

10. Magic Rocker

11. Mr. Charlie

12. My Love Is Your Love

13. Square Dance Rock, Pt. 1

14. Square Dance Rock, Pt. 2

15. Every Night About This Time

16. Do the Camel Walk

17. You Don't Have to Work

18. Blue Light Boogie

19. Out of Bad Luck

20. She Belongs to Me

See all 25 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

The Essential Magic Sam: The Cobra and Chief Recordings 1957-1961 by Magic Sam

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some great stuff, but a lot of recycling as well, February 10, 2005

By 

Docendo Discimus (Vita scholae) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential Magic Sam: Cobra & Chief Recordings 1957-1961 (Audio CD)

Recycling?! Yes, well, there is some really great, energetic blues and R&B here, and some sizzling guitar playing, but you also get the feeling that Magic Sam only knew three or four songs at this point in his career, and he keeps doing them over and over with slightly different lyrics.

"The Essential Magic Sam" is not a career-spanning compilation; it chronicles Sam Maghett's earliest recordings for the Cobra, Crash and Chief labels, and while this material has been available for a long time, this disc probably has the best fidelity of any collection of these songs. Nice annotation as well, by the way.

Sam was only in his early twenties when these singles were recorded, and some of the songs show up many years later on the excellent LPs "West Side Soul" and "Black Magic". And while the classic "All Your Love", the passionate "Every Night About This Time", and the swinging "Look Watcha Done" are certainly great songs, the Cobra, Chief and Crash singles lack some of the variation of Sam's later recordings. "Everything Gonna Be Alright", "My Love Is Your Love", "Love Me This Way", "All Night Long", and "Easy Baby" are simply carbon copies of the 1957 single "All Your Love", and this compilation would actually benefit from being cut down to perhaps fifteen songs.

Still, fans of Magic Sam will certainly want this one in their collection. Casual listeners should start with "West Side Soul", though.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Legend Begins Here, August 8, 2001

By 

BluesDuke "A sacred cow is worth but one thin... (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential Magic Sam: Cobra & Chief Recordings 1957-1961 (Audio CD)

Because he died young thanks to a life of hard and fast living, Magic Sam is sometimes forgotten when compared to his contemporaries Otis Rush and Buddy Guy, with whom he put a little high octane into Chicago's West Side blues scene of the late 1950s. Sometimes, but not all the time. In due course, his "West Side Soul" album would be seen as the landmark set it is, but the remastering and reissue here of his Cobra recordings from 1957 through 1961 lets you hear that, unlike the inconsistent Rush, Magic Sam started at a strikingly high level and built from there (Rush, by contrast, has rarely equalled the soulful fire of his Cobra sides). Like Rush's similar set, this one cleans up and improves a very similar collection issued on the Paula label in the mid-1990s, though it excises a cut or two - it would have been made fun to hear a cleaned-up "Roll Your Moneymaker," Magic Sam's delightful ripoff of the Elmore James classic. Still, this set gives a vivid idea of just where Magic Sam earned his reputation in the first place, and he gets some stellar support from the likes of such Chicago session stalwarts as pianists Little Brother Montgomery and Otis Spann, bassist/producer Willie Dixon, drummers Odie Payne and S.P. Leary, future soul legend Syl Johnson on guitar and bass, and harmonica player/vocalist Shakey Jake, among others. Here's where the case for Magic Sam as one of the best of the second-generation Chicago blues guitarists begins.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the best of teh best of the blues...!!!!!!!!!!!!, May 9, 2005

By 

Docendo no Comprendo (La Vida loco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential Magic Sam: Cobra & Chief Recordings 1957-1961 (Audio CD)

There are NO fillers here, just 100% pure jump blues. This is an outstanding colelction of great blues, infused with soul, jazz, swing, and r&b. A great vocie, and most of the songs have boppin' or shufflin' rhythms that are great for dancers(strolelrs and boppers). A wonderful cd, and an essential for fans of greasy blues singers. If you like Junior Wells Cobra sides from the late 50's, you'll like these too!!!