With the first warm pangs of springtime sweeping New York, there can be few albums so complimentary as Sam Cooke’s Live At The Harlem Square Club from 1963. Because I enjoyed writing about James Brown’s live album, I thought I’d do another!
Much like Brown, Sam Cooke was a crossover artist, crossing from soul and gospel to pop music, though still for a predominantly black audience. Even the album is recorded from the show at the Harlem Square club in Miami’s historically black neighborhood of Overtown (they tried to trick you there — cheeky). Perhaps its location allows the album to be so unfettered and intense. If I was sweating like a hooker in church, I’d probably cut loose too.
In gospel fashion, Cooke starts a call-and-response relationship with the opening “Feel It,” screaming “I said if you feel it, feel it, feel it, say oh yeah!” The audience happily obliges; their engagement is so easy and carefree that it’s impossible not to get carried away. Set aside are Cooke’s swaying, poppy croons like “Only Sixteen” and replaced with a more raw and urgent sound. “Bring It On Home To Me” is almost euphoric with anticipation and then halfway through Cooke is liberated and it is as if the audience has gone silent with awe. The headline song “Twistin’ The Night Away” explodes in the middle of the set and the listener is quite literally moved from bobbing back and forth to standing on their feet. That’s what live music is all about in the end, isn’t it?
Review by Eva Bandurowski. Follow her on Twitter at @ewabando.
