38. Sam Cooke — Live At The Harlem Square Club (1963)

1. In the last review, I wrote: “I’m pretty excited for the future of the 1001. From the Beatles to Dylan to this, I’ve seen a tectonic shift in the direction of pop music in 1963. Glancing ahead, I’m not sure the next few albums will be as groundbreaking, but we’re on the cusp of a new pop world, and I’m ready for it.” Boy, was I wrong. Wrong, and ill-prepared for the fire of this Sam Cooke live recording.
2. Fire is an appropriate descriptor; I was out of breath by the time these 36 minutes were up, the tightest 36 minutes of music I can recall listening to in a long time. I don’t know if that was the full length of the concert or if breaks between songs were trimmed for the release, but Cooke just does not stop here. Once he hits the stage, his band having warmed up already, he barely pauses for even a second from wailing into his mic. You can practically hear him dancing across the stage; the audience is as fired up as any I’ve heard in a live recording, losing their minds from start to finish. It’s pure audio spectacle.
3. Cooke died the year after this recording; the recording itself didn’t see the light of day for another 21 years after that. It seems his label was concerned about how this recording — recorded in front of a working class African American crowd of people who’d been fans since his gospel days — would affect his reputation among the white people who’d grown familiar with his more polite pop-oriented studio recordings. This is madness to me. 22 years later, it was madness to everyone else as well.
4. Back to what I said earlier, doubting the next few albums would be groundbreaking. I was expecting that mainstream pop sound from Cooke. The man basically invented soul music, but I was expecting a more milquetoast, safe version, not this. Nothing in the 1001 so far — not Little Richard, not Ray Charles, not Muddy Water, not The Beatles — has captured a sound like Sam Cooke at the Harlem Square Club. I saw Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings a few times before she passed away; listening to this Sam Cooke album gave me the same ecstatic reaction as those live experiences did, still some of the most electric shows I’ve ever seen.
5. After listening to this album, I went back to other Sam Cooke tunes. It’s…stunning. He’s a totally different artist on this recording. It’s hard to believe it’s the same singer, the same band. What a damn shame to have lost him only a year later; who knows what more he could’ve given the world.

One Essential Song:

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