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Gospel-informed soul singer Sam Cooke died tragically in December 1964 in murky circumstances; at the time, Cooke was enjoying a sustained peak as a songwriter, performer and recording artist. In the wake of his untimely death, a number of tribute projects paid respect to his artistry. Prominent among those was the pointedly-titled We Remember Sam Cooke<\/i>, the fifth studio album form Motown vocal powerhouse The Supremes.<\/p>\n
Featuring 11 songs \u2013 all Cooke compositions save \u201cWonderful World\u201d (a Cooke co-write with Lou Adler and Herb Alpert) \u2013 We Remember Sam Cooke hiys the sweet spot between reverence and creative expression. Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard make the songs their own, giving them the Supremes stamp while holding onto what make the tunes successful in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou Send Me\u201d is the first and highest-profile cut on the LP (newly reissued as part of Elemental Music\u2019s Motown vinyl reissue series). The arrangement doesn\u2019t go anywhere adventurous, bt then it doesn\u2019t need to. There\u2019s a subtle country flavor applied to the girl-group-y reading of \u201cNothing Can Change this Love,\u201d with hints of the Phil Spector sonic aesthetic. That cavernous wall-of-sound vibe is carried through on \u201cCupid.\u201d the arrangement has a detached character \u2013 almost as if the vocals were recorded across town from the instruments \u2013 but it\u2019s catchy nonetheless. Still, a mono mix (or simply folding down the stereo mix used here) could have corrected those sonic shortcomings.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bit strange hearing the \u201cUgh! Ah!\u201d of \u201cChain Gang,\u201d sung by The Supremes, backed by sassy brass section; the mental image of the trio in cocktail gowns, crooning sweetly about prison workers is a bit jarring. Far more successful (and apropos) is a cover of \u201cBring it on Home to Me,\u201d in which The Supremes totally own the classic.<\/p>\n
The trio switches the gender for \u201cOnly Sixteen,\u201d and once again, the song fits Ross and her cohorts like a (elbow-length) glove. One of the record\u2019s most upbeat moments is \u201cHavin\u2019 a Party.\u201d The easy-listening arrangement has just the right amount of bounce. And for \u201cShake,\u201d the Supremes finally tear the roof off the joint; it sounds for all the world like a hit single, but in fact neither \u201cShake\u201d nor any of the album\u2019s ten other tracks would be released as a single.<\/p>\n
\u201cWonderful World\u201d is lovely but adds nothing new to the song; while it does no harm, most listeners will be happy sticking with the original. Cooke\u2019s gospel roots are paid tribute with \u201cA Change is Gonna Come.\u201d The syrupy strings threaten to overwhelm the vocals, but one supposes that the song demands as much. We Remember Sam Cooke<\/i> closes with \u201c(Ain\u2019t That) Good News.\u201d The bouncy gospel vibe is a bit of a stylistic departure for the Supremes, and it deftly illustrates the trio\u2019s range.<\/p>\n
A nicely put together straight-reissue, Elemental\u2019s vinyl release of We Remember Sam Cooke<\/i> is a welcome addition. The record hasn\u2019t been available in the U.S. on vinyl since 1965; even the CD version dates way back to 1991.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gospel-informed soul singer Sam Cooke died tragically in December 1964 in murky circumstances; at the time, Cooke was enjoying a sustained peak as a songwriter, performer and recording artist. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,64,65,69,73],"tags":[5158,5454,5453],"class_list":["post-27778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","category-reissue","category-review","category-soul","category-vinyl","tag-diana-ross","tag-sam-cooke","tag-the-supremes","cat-51-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27780,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27778\/revisions\/27780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}