Nightbeat [Original recording remastered, Import]

Recorded across 3 nights in February 1963, "Night Beat" is an unusual album for Sam Cooke in that it features slowed-down, paired-back Blues tunes with a slightly Soul-Gospel tint - and man does it work. Originally released September 1963 in the USA on RCA Victor LSP-2709 - the piano and organ centre a lot of the songs - each with a midnight-lounge languid feel that suited his voice to a tee. And of the 12-tracks there's barely a clunker in sight. In fact it feels like you're listening to "Elvis Is Back" from 1960 - an album that's good all the way through - rather than being just patchy. Here are the CD details...

US-released in September 2005, "Night Beat" on RCA/Legacy 82876 69551 2 comes in a card digipak with an attached 11-page booklet on the inside (37:57 minutes). The detailed and affectionate liner notes are by noted writer PETER GURALNICK (author of the acclaimed "Dream Boogie: The Triumph Of Sam Cooke") while the CD itself rather prettily reflects the original coloured 'Dog And Gramophone' RCA Victor label of the original.

BOB LUDWIG remastered the first generation tapes and the sound quality can only be described as BEAUTIFUL. It's always been a famous Audiophile treat on original 'Living Stereo' vinyl (180-gram reissues of it are available to this day) - but little prepares you for the full range and clarity on offer here. Originally produced to perfection by RCA's resident experts Hugo & Luigi, the instruments are razor sharp - as is his angelic voice. His phrasing and holding of notes is classy, effortless and smooth as a newborn's smooth parts. Cooke's voice on this album is fabulous - the stuff of legend - and this CD allows you to enjoy it to the full.

Highlights include his own three compositions - "Mean Old World", "Laughin' And Clownin'" and "You Gotta Move" all of which feature the wonderful piano-playing of RAY JOHNSON with BILLY RESTON slinking it up on Organ. There are four Charles Brown cover versions (a Forties & Fifties R&B artist on Aladdin and King Records) - one of which is the gorgeous "Get Yourself Another Fool". The remaster has kept the slight hiss at the beginning and throughout - it's 'not' been compressed out of existence or removed with a no-noise effect - which is good news because it allows the sound to breath - it's 'so' good.

"Lost And Lookin'" was written especially for Cooke by his SAR Records associates J.W. Alexander and Lowell Jordan and apart from a lone bass line and single cymbal tapping - it's practically Acapella Blues. It's a stunning vocal turn by Cooke. The groove achieved in Willie Dixon's classic "Little Red Rooster" (a hit for Howlin' Wolf) is enhanced by Billy Preston wittily aping the sound of dogs barking and hounds howling on his organ. The album ends on an upbeat high - a cover of Big Joe Turner's wonderful "Shake, Rattle And Roll" - a version that doesn't dilute down the saucy lyrics of the 1954 Atlantic Records original as Bill Haley's Decca remake did a year later (title above).

"Night Beat" is the kind of album you can play on a Sunday morning and just drift away on its Mad Men cool and Church-like warmth. In 2013 it'll be 50 years old - and yet it still sounds fresh and thrilling.

"Night Beat" is a criminally overlooked classic that should be in your life. No less than Ray Charles called Sam Cooke "...the one and only..." and on the evidence presented here - Brother Ray was right.

As the late, great critic Robert Palmer wrote in the liner notes to the 1995 edition of "Night Beat," this beautiful album is something of an anomaly in Sam Cooke's career, which evolved from the Soul Stirrers' classic gospel through a series of mostly terrific hit singles (see "The Man and His Music") and a pair of very different live albums (get the "Harlem Square Club" set) and his own record label (which issued sides by Bobby Womack and the Valentinos, Johnnie Taylor, and many others, collected on the excellent "SAR Records Story"). Until shortly before his death in December 1964 the market for Cooke's music would have been almost exclusively a singles market, but by then the artist had become aware of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, and as "Night Beat" reveals would certainly have adapted to the emerging emphasis on the album as artistic statement.

Having bought the Portrait of a Legend CD I saw the reissue of this album and took a flyer. The only song shared by both albums is Little Red Rooster and this song is a good indicator of the mood of Night Beat - you only have to look at the titles to get the idea.

The singing is of a very high calibre but with less pop type hits and a more bluesy, gospel approach especially on the first track and the second track which is almost unaccompanied.

The only song that doesn't really fit is the last track "Shake Rattle & Roll" but it's still worth listening to.

A good companion to the Portrait of a Legend.