Sam Cooke – Portrait of a Legend (2003)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:26 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © ABKCO Records
From his teenage debut as a full fledged member of the legendary Soul Stirrers in 1951 through his career as a rhythm and blues phenomenon, Sam Cooke is acknowledged as the progenitor of soul music. His hit songs, most of which he wrote, went on to become pop standards, enduring to this day. Sam Cooke’s amazing body of work is now encapsulated in Sam Cooke: Portrait of A Legend:1951-1964. It includes 30 tracks and is part of ABKCO’s Sam Cooke Remastered Collection, an initiative to offer state of the art editions of restored and remastered. The songs included into Portrait Of A Legend collectively logged 273 weeks or five years and three months on Billboard’s Pop Chart and a mind boggling 508 weeks (nine years and nine months) on the Pop and R&B charts, combined.
Some 46 years after his first pop hit, and 39 years after his death, comes only the second attempt at a comprehensive Sam Cooke collection. Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964 eclipses RCA’s early-’80s The Man and His Music, going it better in running time but losing some important recordings — “That’s Heaven to Me” and “Soothe Me,” arguably one of Cooke’s most important songs — in the process of summing up his career. From 1951’s Soul Stirrers’ gospel classic “Touch the Hem of His Garment” through to 1964’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and “Shake,” we get highlights of Cooke’s career presented in state-of-the-art digital audio; superior in every way possible to the audio quality of The Man and His Music. What’s more, this is a hybrid disc with SACD capability, and the sound on that layer is almost as much of a jump above the quality on the CD layer as this remastering is from the old The Man and His Music disc; and either the standard CD or the SACD playback makes that 1980s-issued compilation sound faint and anemic. There’s also annotation here — which was totally lacking on the earlier CD — by Peter Guralnick, which delves very effectively into the background of each song. And the producers have taken the trouble to be a little inventive in the programming — it would have been easy enough to follow a strict chronological approach, but instead the disc opens and closes with tracks that reveal Cooke’s gospel roots, which is pretty much where his music started and where it ended up, bookending his first hit with songs from his first session ever.
Tracklist:
01. Sam Cooke – Touch The Hem Of His Garment (02:05)
02. Sam Cooke – Lovable (02:26)
03. Sam Cooke – You Send Me (02:45)
04. Sam Cooke – Only Sixteen (02:05)
05. Sam Cooke – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons (02:40)
06. Sam Cooke – Just For You (02:22)
07. Sam Cooke – Win Your Love For Me (02:47)
08. Sam Cooke – Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha (02:43)
09. Sam Cooke – I’ll Come Running Back To You (02:14)
10. Sam Cooke – You Were Made For Me (02:55)
11. Sam Cooke – Sad Mood (02:40)
12. Sam Cooke – Cupid (02:38)
13. Sam Cooke – (What A) Wonderful World (02:09)
14. Sam Cooke – Chain Gang (02:40)
15. Sam Cooke – Summertime (02:23)
16. Sam Cooke – Little Red Rooster (02:53)
17. Sam Cooke – Bring It On Home To Me (02:45)
18. Sam Cooke – Nothing Can Change This Love (02:39)
19. Sam Cooke – Sugar Dumpling (02:45)
20. Sam Cooke – (Ain’t That) Good News (02:30)
21. Sam Cooke – Meet Me At Mary’s Place (02:43)
22. Sam Cooke – Twistin’ The Night Away (02:44)
23. Sam Cooke – Shake (02:53)
24. Sam Cooke – Tennessee Waltz (03:11)
25. Sam Cooke – Another Saturday Night (02:42)
26. Sam Cooke – Good Times (02:28)
27. Sam Cooke – Having A Party (02:37)
28. Sam Cooke – That’s Where It’s At (02:37)
29. Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come (03:13)
30. Sam Cooke – Jesus Gave Me Water (02:31)
31. Sam Cooke – Soul (Hidden Track) (00:31)
