Customer Reviews

Sam Cooke - Greatest Hits

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are only two Sam Cooke compilations which I would say are comprehensive.First is the 3-record set The One And Only Sam Cooke,a mail order album by Candlelight Music(with a blue RCA label) from 1974.The second was The Man And His Music his first CD-era compilation which included the full-lenghth version of A Change Is Gonna Come.Unfortunatly these two are out of print(if any one can give me information on how to get a copy of The One And Only...please Email me).This new hits collection is an essential because the tracks are remastered,bringing out the clarity in the instrumentation(especially the strings and french horn on Cupid)and also the inclusion, for the first time in the digital era,Frankie & Johnny,Send Me Some Lovin'(a Little Richard cover),and That's It-I Quit-I'm Movin'On.Unfortunatly,the omission of Another Saturday Night,Ain't That Good News,When A Boy Falls In Love,Good Times and of course the transcending A Change Is Gonna Come, shows like other Cooke hits that a two disc set or a box set is the only way to truly represent this man's body of work.As long as you have the man's beautiful voice on any digitally encoded piece of aluminum,any Sam Cooke is essential.

With 1986's The Man And His Music out of print, the release of Greatest Hits is a case of good news, bad news.

Good News: It updates and expands on the CD version of 1962's The Best Of by adding eight more tracks. You get early minor hits like "You Were Made for Me" and "Love You Most of All" (both from 1958). You also get later hits like "Send Me Some Lovin'," "Frankie and Johnny" (yes, it's on the CD, even though it's not listed by Amazon) and "The Little Red Rooster" all Top 20 hits from 1963. You even get his final Top 40 hit, "Sugar Dumpling," which was released posthumously in 1965.

Bad News: Unlike The Man And His Music, Greatest Hits completely ignores Cooke's gospel music and even more dumbfounding is the omission of "Another Saturday Night," "Shake" (his last two Top Ten hits) and the socially conscious "A Change Is Gonna Come." [Who was asleep at the switch when that decision was made?] Fortunately, I still have my cassette version of The Man And His Music, but until that title gets re-released, Greatest Hits is the current best alternative. RECOMMENDED

You can never really go wrong with a Sam Cooke album. This is no exception.The CD contains a good number of his 'hits'. Cooke works for just about any mood I happpen to be in. I often get in my car, pop in this CD, click on "Bring It On Home To Me" and just keep playing that song over and over. For you trivia buffs out there - that's Lou Rawls doing the harmony with Cooke on this track. You Send Me, Wonderful World, Twistin the NIght Away - work well for those upbeat moments. All in all - a CD worth buying.

Cooke, often acknowledged as the definitive soul singer, gets some of his catalog back on CD with this generous single-disc collection. This piece is packed with his Keen and RCA hits up to 1964 but having had 31 charted pop singles up to that point, by necessity some of the lower-charting sides are not here. The major disappointment though, is the lack of any of Cooke's material after 1963. Unfortunately, his catalog for that post-1963 material was in the hands of ABKCO music that, at the time of this production, stubbornly refused to license anything to anyone else.

Nevertheless, for as far as it can go, this is an excellent compilation of this magnificent soul singer's recordings. The mastering has been vastly improved over past attempts at this material with many of the tracks in true stereo, the remainder (1-3,5,8) in mono. By far, this represents the best single-disc presentation of this soul icon's musical career to come along so far.

How can you have a "Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits" and omit "Another Saturday Night"? The omission of that one song for the inclusion of songs like "Red Rooster" and "Frankie and Johnny" is the reason that I gave this 3 stars. Those songs were not chart-busters like "Another Saturday Night." Just a bad choice by RCA.

It just shows that the companies want to you go and buy the greatest hits and the "other cd" that contains that one song that should have been on it to begin with! It is all about money and marketing.

Any Sam Cooke compilation WITHOUT the CLASSIC 'A Change Is Gonna Come' is deemed incomplete, so the CD loses two stars automatically.There's enough space left on the CD for at least 4-5 more tracks, so what's the excuse ??
My Verdict-Nice intro to the late & GREAT Sam Cooke, but a more comprehensive anthology (in single CD format) needs to be released ASAP!!

If you have only listened to "The Best Of Sam Cooke" thus far, you will find this collection to be a welcome expansion to your soul music library. If you own "The Man And His Music," you'll enjoy hearing some of his early Keen hits that didn't make that set, such as "You Were Made For Me" and "Love You Most Of All." My one complaint about this disc is that I'd think ANY compilation on Sam Cooke that calls itself Greatest Hits would contain his classic, "Another Saturday Night." But the song is available elsewhere, so why quibble? "The Man And His Music" was a comprehensive 2-disc set that concentrated on songs that Sam wrote. You find that of the 21 tracks on this greatest hits package, Sam wrote 16. He was a very gifted songwriter, able to transcribe any mood. Happy songs, sad songs, dancing songs, protest songs; Sam wrote them all, and he could sing them all. There are a whole lot of singers who made their careers emulating Sam's sound (Bobby Womack comes to mind). But who can blame them? Why not emulate something that is so good? Like his music, Sam has remained ever young to us; ever fresh within our minds. He'd be pushing 70 years old if he were still with us today. And like JFK, it just doesn't seem possible that the man could BE that old. It hurt when he was taken from us, but that face, that manner, that voice, that ability, that professionalism... they all remain fixed in our minds. They're the talents of an extremely gifted young man. THAT'S Sam Cooke.

I bought the cd for two songs, "Cupid" and "Twistin' the Night Away". I'm glad I got this one though because the rest of it is great. I listen to the cd pretty much straight through which is rare for me. If you like even one of the songs on this cd you'll probably like the rest. He's got a really smooth voice. You can't help but enjoy. I LOVE this cd

SAM COOKE IS IN A CLASS ALL HIS OWN. HIS WRITTING IS EVEN BETTER THAN HIS SINGING & HIS SINGING IS GREAT!!! THIS COLLECTION HITS THE SPOT FROM THE FIRST SONG UNTIL THE LAST. MY ONLY REGRET IS "CHANGE IS GONNA COME" WAS NOT INCLUDED. ALL IN ALL, IF YOU LOVE SAM COOKE, YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS COLLECTION.

I'm not really sure how to grade this album.

I like Sam Cooke's music, but I'm not THAT big a fan, so for me this is really more of a four-star album. But as far as Sam Cooke-collections go, it is superb, spanning all his best and best-known "secular" songs (the gospel material isn't here). And considering that this is some of the best, most influential soul music ever recorded, I suppose "Greatest Hits" deserves a five star rating (although these studio recordings don't have the nerve of the live renditions on Cooke's magnificent "Live At The Harlem Square Club" album).

As I said, everything the casual fan needs is here. Soft, tender ballads...almost too sweet at times, but Cooke was a black man trying to make it in a world dominated by often-prejudiced white people, and sweaty R&B was not yet quite acceptable among white listeners.
And even though they may leave holes in your teeth, it's hard not to enjoy catchy, soulful little pop songs like "Win Your Love For Me", "Only Sixteen", "Love You Most Of All", "Sugar Dumpling" and "Cupid". And Cooke does rock for real on the classic R&B-workouts "Twistin' The Night Away" and "Having A Party".

Besides, you listen to "Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha" and tell me that's not about sex.

Everything on this greatest hits-package is good, most is great, and a few songs are even superb, such as Cooke's bluesy "Bring It On Home To Me" and the lovely little pop gem "Cupid".

Get it. You'll recognize many more songs than you think.