Ace Is Twistin’ the Night Away with Sam Cooke Tribute, Motown Rarities and More

When it comes to rare soul, Ace Records never sleeps!  The label has recently released a compilation celebrating the career of Sam Cooke not as a singer but as a songwriter, along with collections dedicated to excavating the vaults of two great Detroit labels: Westbound Records, and of course, Motown!

Countless albums have anthologized the short but influential oeuvre of Sam Cooke, but Bring It on Home: Black America Sings Sam Cooke takes a different approach, featuring 24 versions of Cooke compositions recorded between 1959 and 1976, performed by some of the biggest African-American names in popular music.  Cooke (1931-1964) was a singer-songwriter before the term was in fashion, writing or co-writing 25 of his 35 R&B hits charted between 1957 and 1965 (not counting many of the B-sides which he also wrote).  Bring It on Home doubles as a “Who’s Who” of classic American soul, with artists from the Stax, Motown and Atlantic rosters among many others.

Many of Cooke’s most famous songs are here: the silky, chart-topping ballad “You Send Me” as performed by Percy Sledge in Muscle Shoals, “Shake” from Cooke disciple Otis Redding (who, like Cooke, died tragically young – but not before including renditions of Cooke songs on all but one of the studio albums released during his lifetime), “Cupid” from “Take a Letter, Maria” singer R.B. Greaves, “Wonderful World” from Johnny Nash of “I Can See Clearly Now,” and of course, “A Change is Gonna Come” from “Gimme Little Sign” vocalist Brenton Wood.  The title track, “Bring It On Home to Me,” is heard courtesy of Stax legend Eddie Floyd.  As a special treat, Ace has unearthed a previously unissued version of Theola Kilgore’s “answer song” to “Chain Gang” entitled “(Chain Gang) The Sound of My Man.”

A couple of tracks are drawn from the Motown stable including The Supremes ‘ ” (Ain’t That) Good News” from Diana, Mary and Flo’s 1965 We Remember Sam Cooke album, with Flo on a thunderous lead.  Smokey Robinson leads The Miracles on their 1964 version of “Dance What You Wanna.”  From the Stax Records family, Sam and Dave offer their first U.K. Pop hit, 1966’s “Sooth Me.”  A couple of tracks have been drawn from Sam Cooke’s own SAR label, too: Sam’s production of “Rome (Wasn’t Built in a Day)” by future Stax superstar Johnnie Taylor, and Johnnie Morisette’s “Meet Me at the Twistin’ Place,” also produced by Sam.  Mr. Cooke himself is heard on “That’s Heaven to Me” from his final session with The Soul Stirrers.  Other highlights include tracks from Lou Rawls (“Win Your Love”), Aretha Franklin (“Good Times”) and Little Anthony and the Imperials (“I’m Alright”), proving the breadth of Cooke’s versatility.  Tony Rounce has provided the track-by-track liner notes in the 16-page booklet, and Duncan Cowell has newly remastered all tracks.  Bring It on Home is a worthy addition to the series of Black America Sings, which also includes titles spotlighting the songs of Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Otis Redding, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

After the jump, we’re heading to Detroit!

Release Round-Up: Week of July 29

The Allman Brothers Band, The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings (Mercury/UMe)

The four shows in March 1971 that made up the band’s legendary breakthrough album are presented in full for the first time, along with the group’s closing set at the Fillmore East that following June. The Blu-ray version features the material in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound.

6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
3-BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
4LP Highlights: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Peggy Lipton, The Complete Ode Recordings / Gene Rains, Far Away Lands — The Exotic Music of Gene Rains /How to Stuff a Wild Bikini: Original Stereo Soundtrack / Cass Elliot, Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore Plus Rarities – Her Final Recordings / Dee Dee Warwick, The Complete Atco Recordings / The Shirelles, Happy and in Love/Shirelles / The Dream Academy, The Morning Lasted All Day — A Retrospective (Real Gone Music)

This diverse Real Gone set includes a compilation from underrated ’80s synthpop group The Dream Academy and recordings from Peggy Lipton, star of The Mod Squad; she covers the songs of Carole King, Laura Nyro, Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and Jimmy Webb on this release, which has liner notes from our own Joe Marchese!

Peggy Lipton: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Gene Rains: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Wild Bikini: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Cass Elliot: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Dee Dee Warwick: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
The Shirelles: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
The Dream Academy: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Deep Purple, Hard Road: The Mark 1 Studio Recordings 1968-1969 (Parlophone U.K.)

Deep Purple’s first three albums get the box set treatment with bonus tracks and stereo and mono mixes of the first two albums. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

James Brown, Get on Up: The James Brown Story – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Polydor/UMe)

In honor of the new film opening this week, Universal’s got a new JB compilation, naturally featuring a pair of unreleased live tracks from 1966. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Eric Clapton and Friends, The Breeze (An Appreciation of J.J. Cale) (Bushbranch/Surfdog)

The legendary bluesman and some famous friends (Tom Petty, Willie Nelson, Mark Knopfler, John Mayer) pay tribute to the late blues singer-songwriter on this new album.

Standard Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2CD Box Set: Surfdog Records
4LP: Surfdog Records

L.C. Cooke, The Complete SAR Records Recordings (ABKCO)

This anthology collects the complete recordings of L.C. Cooke for his older brother Sam’s SAR Records label, including one complete shelved album produced and largely written by Sam, plus alternate takes, unreleased tracks, session chatter and bonus recordings from the Checker and Destination labels!  Musicians include Bobby and Cecil Womack, Billy Preston and “Pink Panther” saxophonist Plas Johnson! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Silver Convention, Get Up and Boogie: Expanded Edition / Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., I Hope We Get to Love in Time: Expanded Edition / Phyllis Nelson, Move Closer (Big Break Records)

Big Break has three more R&B classics arriving on CD this week  including the first post-5th Dimension album from Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. featuring their smash “You Don’t Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show).”

Silver Convention: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Marilyn & Billy: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Phyllis Nelson: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Van Dyke Parks, Super Chief (Yep Roc)

Yep Roc reissues Van Dyke Parks’ 2013 “orchestral fantasy” on standalone CD (previously only available as part of a Record Store Day vinyl package) for the first time! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Various Artists, Guardians of the Galaxy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack/Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (Hollywood Records)

Here’s the only collection approved for listening by The Star Lord! This indeed-awesome all-catalogue mix includes vintage cuts from The Jackson 5, The Raspberries, David Bowie, The Runaways, Blue Swede, Rupert Holmes and more – all but one of which (Norman Greenbaum’s immortal “Spirit in the Sky”) play key roles in the Marvel blockbuster-to-be! Also available as part of a 2CD or 2LP deluxe edition also including the film’s orchestral score by Tyler Bates!

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

*NSYNC, The Essential *NSYNC (Jive/Legacy)

This two-disc set from the late ’90s/early ’00s boy band lives up to its name for fans, featuring all the great hits (“Bye Bye Bye,” “Tearin’ Up My Heart,” “Pop”) plus a myriad of rarities from compilations, soundtracks and international pressings. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Various Artists, Ghostbusters: Original Soundtrack Album (Arista/Legacy)

A sequel of sorts to the Record Store Day single co-produced by our own Mike Duquette, this is a straight reissue of the original soundtrack, newly remastered for vinyl. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

California Dreamin’: Carole King, Merry Clayton, The Everly Brothers Featured on “Lou Adler: A Musical History”

Songwriter, manager, A&R man, producer, director, impresario, diehard L.A. Lakers fan – in his eighty years, Lou Adler has worn all of those labels proudly.  It’s hard to believe that the same man behind The Rocky Horror Show – both on stage and on screen – and Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke also helmed one of the most successful records ever in Carole King’s Tapestry, or that the same man penned a bona fide standard in Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World.”  But much of Lou Adler’s extraordinary career has defied belief, and Ace Records has recently summed it up in an exciting new compilation entitled Lou Adler: A Musical History.  Over 25 tracks released between 1958 and 1974, the anthology chronicles a singular showbiz life and also serves as a mini-history of Los Angeles pop-rock.

A Musical History traces the ascent of Chicago-born, L.A.-raised Adler from hustling songwriter to in-demand producer.  With future Tijuana Brass bandleader and A&M Records leader Herb Alpert, the young Adler co-wrote tunes for a diverse crop of artists including Cooke (“All of My Life”), Sam Butera and the Witnesses (“Bim Bam”), Jan and Dean (“Honolulu Lulu”) and Johnny “Guitar” Watson (“Deana Baby”).  Equally adept at rock-and-roll, doo-wop and R&B, the duo also found time to produce not just their own songs for these artists, but outside compositions.  The Adler/Alpert team revived The Spaniels’ “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight” for The Untouchables and gave The Hollywood Argyles a run for their money with a cash-in cover of “Alley-Oop” by Dante and the Evergreens.  These slices of early-sixties pop kick off this set on a high note, but Adler’s first Golden Age really came when he split with Alpert in 1961.

The parting of the ways worked out for both men, with Alpert launching The Tijuana Brass, the hit “The Lonely Bull” and of course, A&M Records, just one year later with new partner Jerry Moss.  As for our man Adler, his association with Don Kirshner led to his opening the West Coast office of Aldon Music, as well as a production credit on tracks like The Everly Brothers’ Top 10 hit “Crying in the Rain.”  Most importantly, though, Adler made connections at Aldon that would come to, in large part, define his career – connections with the likes of Carole King and P.F. Sloan.  The achingly vulnerable “Crying” was co-written by Carole King and Howard Greenfield, moonlighting from their respective partners Gerry Goffin and Neil Sedaka.   In addition to King, Adler also met P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri at Aldon, pairing the two songwriters up and soon snatching them away from Kirshner’s empire to his newly-formed Dunhill Productions.

After the jump: much more on Adler’s illustrious career, including the complete track listing and order links!

New Cooke Digital Box is Really Keen…If You’re in the U.K.

Sam Cooke fans were really in for a surprise a short time ago, when Legacy released a box set of eight of his original RCA LPs on CD through their PopMarket outlet. Almost as tantalizing – if not for the format or the territorial limits placed upon it – is a new digital box set collecting Cooke’s earlier material for Keen Records.

Cooke’s material for the Keen label – recorded from 1957 (after seven years as lead tenor in the gospel group The Soul Stirrers) to 1960 (the year he signed with RCA Victor and recorded classics like “A Change is Gonna Come,” “Bring It on Home to Me,” “Cupid” and “Twistin’ the Night Away”) – was just as fruitful as any other phase of his career. It was the Keen era that gave Cooke his very first smash single (the highest-charting of his career), with “You Send Me,” not to mention R&B hits like “I’ll Come Running Back to You,” “You Were Made for Me” and “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.”

And now, ABKCO Records, controllers of Cooke’s Keen output in the U.K., present digital-only reissues of four of Cooke’s LPs for the label, as well as a digital box set collating virtually every single and album side the singer made for the label. The Remastered Keen Collection is three discs – one featuring Cooke’s self-titled debut and a handful of early singles, all in mono; one featuring second and third albums Encore and Tribute to the Lady and another featuring various single sides and a few compilation tracks (several of these tracks are in stereo).

ABKCO will also reissue four Cooke albums on their own – Sam Cooke, Encore, Hit Kit and The Wonderful World of Sam Cooke – with the latter three featuring bonus tracks. Of all the tracks on these individual albums, it seems the only tracks that don’t feature on the digital box are three tracks cut in stereo.

All of these sets are available from your favorite digital retailer today – but only in the U.K. (perhaps to make up for all the time international fans get stuck trying to buy our domestic catalogue products). Hit the jump to taunt yourself (if you’re an American reader) with all the riches you can’t have right now.

Review: Sam Cooke, “The RCA Albums Collection”

In 1963, RCA Victor dubbed its young star Sam Cooke “Mr. Soul” as the title of his latest LP.  Today, few would argue with that appellation as we remember the roof- (and consciousness-) raising “A Change is Gonna Come,” the ultimate festive anthem “Havin’ a Party” or the bluesy R&B “Chain Gang.”  But Mr. Soul, the album, offered a more complex portrait of the artist, offering “These Foolish Things,” “I Wish You Love” and “Cry Me a River” alongside Ahmet Ertegun’s “Chains of Love,” Johnny Moore’s “Driftin’ Blues” and Cooke’s own “Nothing Can Change This Love.” Mr. Soul is one of eight albums included in Legacy’s Sam Cooke: The RCA Albums Collection (RCA/Legacy 8869789870 2), a limited edition release available exclusively through PopMarket.  Five of the albums are making their worldwide CD debuts; a sixth was previously only released on CD in Europe.  Taken together, the new box set offers an alternate history of the singer we all thought we knew.

The RCA Albums Collection isn’t a definitive Cooke box set; in fact, one doesn’t yet exist.  (RCA, in its pre-Sony incarnation, released the well-regarded The Man Who Invented Soul, but that box lacked some seminal tracks due to legal wrangling with ABKCO, the Allen Klein-founded company which owns a number of Cooke’s late-era masters.)  But The RCA Albums Collection does fill a significant gap in the discography of “Mr. Soul,” with five of its titles returning to print for the first time in nearly 50 years.  And isn’t that cause for celebration? 

Cooke was no stranger himself to celebration as a member of The Soul Stirrers, the gospel aggregation that first recorded in 1936 though the group was formed even earlier.  Cooke joined the Soul Stirrers in 1950 at the age of 19, replacing the venerable Rebert H. (R.H.) Harris as lead singer.  Harris, with his high tenor, three-octave range, mastery of the melisma and propensity for wailing and moaning, was the model for generations of gospel singers to come, including Cooke.  Harris departed the group after recording just one session at Art Rupe’s Specialty Records, leaving the door wide open for Sam to make his mark on the influential group.  Cooke’s transition to popular music wasn’t an immediate one, and his debut pop single “Lovable” was actually released under a pseudonym in 1956 so as not to alienate his core audience.  But when the singer fully embraced secular music, he brought to it the same fervor he applied to gospel, along with his signature “Whoa-oo-oo” wail.  This may have been his major contribution to popular music and indeed to “soul” as we now know it.  While Cooke wrote much of his own pop material, he also demonstrated an affinity for the music of the Great American Songbook.  It’s actually said that his departure from Specialty was brought on when Rupe found him recording Gershwin rather than Little Richard-esque rock and roll.  Yet most Cooke compilations have completely ignored this sophisticated side of the man’s titanic talent.  The RCA Albums Collection rectifies this, including his most significant attempts at courting the crossover adult audience.

Hit the jump for more!

Byrds, Cooke, Corea, Getz “Complete Album Collections” Coming from Legacy

This morning, Sony’s Legacy division kicked off a new catalogue initiative that’s sure to raise a few eyebrows!  The Complete Album Collection box sets bring together an artist’s entire tenure at a label (in these cases, Columbia and RCA Victor) in one tidy box set, with albums in individual mini-LP sleeves.  The first four artists to receive this treatment are The Byrds, Sam Cooke, Stan Getz and Return to Forever, and the boxes are available for pre-order now exclusively through PopMarket.  While many of the titles included have been released on CD in the past, other albums will be making their U.S. CD debuts.  (The Cooke is the most exciting set in this respect, with six of the eight albums new to American CD.  The Getz set has a special surprise, too, in the form of a bonus disc with stray Getz selections.)

We’ll fill in the details later, but in the interest of passing this information to you as quickly as possible, hit the jump for the titles included in each box set and the label-supplied information for each title!  All titles can be pre-ordered now at PopMarket.