Thanks. Did all the tracks that were new at the time make it to Keep Movin’ On? Or are there some that are harder to track down?
In other words, we want the hits. In mono, as they were issued. I want 45 RPM singles of them, and an LP set with them. As originally released, from the best available master tapes.
The album “Try A Little Love” has a killer track that to my knowledge is unavailable elsewhere: “To Each His Own.”
Ha. It might. A lot of my music listening has been reduced to putting on headphones and working early in the morning while my wife and 5-year-old are still sleeping.
One of my fave Sam performances was released posthumously as a b-side to Feel It. Rene Hall, who he had worked with on numerous songs, arranged it. Beautiful performance. It’s never been on CD. I think it’s been on another posthumous LP comp but can’t remember which. Still waiting on my Keen Years box set to arrive from my order from the U Discover Store. Shipped 7/2, but no delivery yet and not at the post office.
While we’re on the subject of rare Sam Cooke recordings, here’s “It’s Time To Say Goodbye,” released only in the 1980s on the short-lived LP and cassette “Forever” and also as a colored vinyl single that was part of a boxed set. The album and singles box set also feature a very rare version of “You Were Made For Me.” I believe production of the album and cassette and the singles boxed set were halted due to the threat of legal action by Abkco, but Specialty was allowed to sell off their existing stock, and as late as 1998 or so they still had copies of the cassette available.
My understanding is that Abkco and/or Tracey, even with the RCA and Specialty material, asserts the right to control the release of previously unissued recordings of Sam Cooke. Sometimes this leads to weird situations, such as RCA not being allowed to put “Another Saturday Night” on its “Greatest Hits” CD (the disc was recalled and reissued without that track), but more often it results in situations like RCA’s “Having A Party” CD, which had to be quickly pulled due to its inclusion of the previously unissued song “She’s So Wonderful.”
That doesn’t seem to be true. The Specialty box had a lot of unreleased recordings, and the Another Saturday Night situation is exactly the opposite of what you state: BMG was forced to remove the released version (likely because ABKCO claimed they owned it, as it was on the Ain’t That Good News album), and in fact later issued an unreleased take on The Man Who Invented Soul.
The Specialty box features no previously unissued recordings — all those alternate takes were previously released on other CDs, and in fact one alternate take was forgotten or overlooked and wasn’t included in the set. Abkco (Tracey) never objected to the release of that material. As for “Another Saturday Night,” RCA wasn’t allowed to use the hit version but was given the ok to use an almost identical alternate for the box set. (There are other examples of Abkco giving it’s blessing to RCA’s use of unreleased material but the most obvious example is “Live At The Harlem Square Club.”) It’s not that Abkco always refuses permission; it’s that it does take action when unreleased material is issued without its permission. And it’s not that Abkco, the record company, claims the right to release unissued material from RCA or Specialty; it’s more that Tracey (now fully absorbed by Abkco) asserts the right to control the use of Sam’s image and songs by those companies and it’s particularly sensitive about vault recordings. This is also why a BBC radio drama on Sam’s life couldn’t use his RCA-recorded music and it’s why a stage play that made use of his RCA-issued music was hit with a legal demand by Abkco to stop. Again, the “Forever” album issue seems to parallel most closely the situation with the “Havin’ A Party” CD that Abkco objected to. I don’t know whether the impetus for the legal action was the nature of the compilation (which also has some unique mixes of songs) or the inclusion of wholly unreleased material, but the disc was on the market for one day before being pulled.
One more note about rare (or stray) Sam Cooke songs to seek out: Fifteen years ago, Capitol Records issued “Les Paul & Friends,” a various artists CD that included two Sam Cooke studio recordings with new backing tracks. “Ain’t That Good News” features Sam’s vocal track with guitar work by Jeff Beck. It’s very good. “Ease My Troublin’ Mind” features Sam with Eric Clapton on guitar and it is truly fantastic. The disc is long out of print but used copies can be picked up for a few bucks.
Man, this takes me back. About 20 years ago I created a CD-R of Sam Cooke songs that had yet to be widely, officially released on CD. A lot of these songs can now be found on either the RCA or Keen boxed sets, but there’s still a fair number of tracks that can only be found on vinyl singles, LPs, or hard-to-find CDs. Here’s the compilation I made:
Yeah the liner notes were to help me keep track of which versions of certain songs I had on there, but I also shared copies with members of the unofficial fan club that back then was having annual gatherings in Chicago, Sam’s hometown. Until I dug out this set, I had completely forgotten about Sam’s recordings of The Piper and Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair. Great stuff.