Complete Specialty Recordings [3 CD]

I am glad I read the reviews before buying this item so I was not unhappy with multiple takes of most songs. There are 3 disks, spanning Cooke's early gospel recordings with Specialty Records as he became a lead singer with the marvelous, firmly established Soul Stirrers. It covers the years when he was 19-26 (1950-1956) and "some 50 songs" ( with a total of 29, 25 + 25 entries/tracks/takes). It is mainly chronological (with the exception of a few songs sung in concert). A 36 page booklet is included with photos and very informative liner notes by Cooke's biographer, Daniel Wolff. I am not a gospel expert --just love to listen to old-school gospel music. It was interesting to have changes in the recordings pointed out as the group experimented with instrumentation and as Sam Cooke was being pulled by the influence and popularity of R&B.I have two things to say about my experience with the multiple takes. It is as if I were listening to a group during rehearsal. When they complete a song which sounded fine to me, they decide to tweek something and sing it again with some change which feel right to them but which is obscure to me. Also, In my case, after listening to all 3 cds, I synched them with my MP3 player. When I listen to my music, I play the MP3 using the shuffle feature, which masks the repititions.

I know everybody heard Sam Cooke pop hits.Now you can hear the Gospel side of Sam Cooke in this complete recordings with him singing with the Soul Stirrers.None of the tracks are boring even though they have alternate tracks of the same song.All songs are interesting and is old time favorites in churches.They said that Sam Cooke could turn out a church with his singing.If you don't believe it there is three live tacks of Sam Cooke singing live in a church with the Soul Stirres.And the congregation is going wild When Sam Cooke sings I Have a Friend Above All Others,Be With Me Jesus and Sam torn them up with Nearer to Thee.I recommend this CD collection to anybody who love Sam Cooke.You can wait a million year's you will never hear a singing voice like Sam Cooke again.

This is the best Same Cooke and Soul Stirrers collection that I have found on the market. It contains all of his speciality recordings. One thing that I enjoy are the master cuts that were never released and the few live concert releases. Sam Cooke had an amazing voice. I grew up listening to the Soul Stirrers every Sunday evening on the radios and blaring from the homes of our neighbors. It was great to find this collection on Amazon and at a very affordable price.

This is the heart of soul singing. There is not a bad or boring track on this CD Box Set. Sam Cooke was the inspiration for nearly every soul singer you will ever hear. If you think you know his work from You Send Me and his pop work, you are in for a surprise. These are some of the finest recording he ever made and they all pre-date You Send Me. The Soul Stirrers had been around for decades when Sam joined them and this is the finest example of their work. Sam fairly floats like a jazz singer over their meaty chords. Yet this is not jazz, this is gospel and you will cherish every word.

Gave to neighbor snd it made an old lady very happy

The collection of music is great. The last 4 tracks on disk 2 will not play or rip properly. There is not visually obvious damage to the disk. Disk 1 and 3 are perfect.

This three-disk set of a young Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers gospel group -- mostly early-1950s recordings -- puts the spotlight on one of pop music's icons, but that praise neglects the glory of the group as an ensemble. Its magic comes forth in typically overworked and underappreciated classics like "Peace in the Valley" and "The Last Mile," and state-of-the-art recording detail and care makes these dozens of recordings enjoyable time after time after time. Recommended to all with at least one ear and an open heart.

Could have been better recorded but good listening as is.

An excellent compilation, that covers his first recordings when he joined the fabulous Soul Stirrers, to when he left to pursue a more secular and highly successful (and influential) path - but it is not his story alone, the Soul Stirrers existed before he joined and after he left (although this covers only his time with them) and their vocal talents are immense.In the early recordings, they are unaccompanied and so tuneful you can tune your guitar to the harmonies as you play along with them, if you want! Paul Foster, the second lead vocalist, was a giant of a singer too, just listen to the way he comes in on 'Peace in the Valley' after Sam Cooke sings his verse. The live recordings on the final disc are particularly revealing as they show the band holding the church audience in the palm of their hands, raising them up and down at their whim. In the 1950's, the church audience had some fantastic gospel acts to lead them in song and this compilation shows one of them at their peak.You can easily hear why the great white rock singers from Elvis to Rod Stewart owe such a debt of gratitude to this band and also how the Soul Stirrers provided the template for later black soul legends Smokey Robinson, The Temptations and the Four Tops, among many others.And if you ever need an album to practice your lead or backing vocals to, this is a great place to start..!

This was early Sam Cooke before he went solo. It contains his entire recordings as lead singer with The Soul Stirrers from 1951 to 1957, sometimes singing co-lead with Paul Foster, the actual group's leader. It was all Gospel, and Sam Cooke in the raw, and at his greatest. You would be surprised to hear what he sounded like here. It also contains plenty of alternate takes with studio chatter and occasional false starts at the beginnings. By the time they got to their final session with Sam Cooke, they seemed to have developed a more wide ranging sound, a little similar to Curtis Mayfield's future group The Impressions but with Sam on lead. But this never materialized because Sam Cooke then left for a solo career, and completely refined himself, developing a more secular and commercial sound, smoothening his voice, and obviously having to water himself down to appeal to the majority market. It also features his handful of solo recordings for the same label, Specialty, from during this time. Five of his solo tracks tracks appear here only with overdubbed female backing vocals which is how they appeared on the original singles. It also misses the alternate take of his solo track Happy In Love. Yet mysteriously, one track on the first CD here I'm On The Firing Line appears here with later stereo overdubs as well as appearing as the next track in it's original undubbed form. Completists will need his CD In The Beginning on the Ace label containing the alternate take of Happy In Love as well as the previously released version which is also here; the five tracks in undubbed form That's All I Need To Know, I Don't Want To Cry, I Need You Now (although with this track, there is no mention of it in the CD package), Lovable & Forever, but four of which also appear elsewhere on that CD in previously released overdubbed form, Lovable being a secular re-recording of a song he did with The Soul Stirrers He's So Wonderful. At the end of one of the CDs here, there is a live 1955 session by The Soul Stirrers containing extended live re-recordings of a few of their songs, but sound roarer and occasionally seemingly better than the original studio versions, complete with gospel shouts. But I do not blame them for omitting the bonus track on the CD reissue of The 2 Sides Of Sam Cooke, a non-song called Humming which only lasts a minute, and is a piece of crud with Sam Cooke merely warbling, and could not have been intended for release. Completists will also need The Soul Stirrers CD on Specialty Heaven Is My Home which starts with the remaining Sam Cooke-period-Soul Stirrers tracks with the raw voiced Paul Foster on lead, some with Sam Cooke's voice noticeable in the background, a couple of which were re-recordings of songs they did originally with Sam on lead, of which those earlier versions are here, followed by their complete Specialty recordings they made with another future soul soloist Johnnie Taylor who replaced Sam Cooke in the group, after he left his previous gospel group The Highway QC's. Paul Foster also sang lead on some of those tracks, while Johnnie Taylor sang lead on the rest. As for Sam Cooke, by all means, continue to listen to his later solo material, but not without hearing all this first.

Love Sam Cooke and this CD is spectacular

Sa voix magique est très juvénile au début du coffret et puis, fasciné, on l'entend devenir plus mature et adulte. A noter, dans le dernier CD, les premiers enregistrements visant résolument le marché pop de l'immense chanteur. N'ayez pas peur du mot gospel: le velouté de Sam Cooke transcende (ah, ah) le genre pour en faire simplement de la musique divine (re ah, ah) , surtout que l'accompagnement musical est très minimaliste et en retrait, juste ce qu'il faut, pour mettre les voix bien en avant. Superbe. Indémodable et pour tout le monde car on ne peut pas ne pas aimer.

I've got much on my backlog of stuff to listen to, I only got to this album today. Naughty, naughty Amazon has far too much of the songs I love, and I keep buying from their stock! Ain't that what a record store is all about, even though it's an online one?I was watching a film about Sam Cooke recently. Something I really ought not to do as it gets me thinking: "Oh, I'd LOVE to have...this and that record!" And so, this set came to light and I couldn't refuse it.As so many black artists did, Sam was to be found singing in church. Many recordings were made of those sessions, which ended up in albums being offered.There's a whole story of Cooke's time with the Soul Stirrers, who were recording long before he arrived on the scene as a very young man. The guys liked him and he became very proficient in his singing. As a young man, singing these gospel songs did him a world of credit for his future career. Any Christian believer will love these albums. I know I do. Not only can I listen with joy, but I also have a piece of musical history I would never had known about, if not for that film.