ABKCO
Following January’s excellently pressed release of Sam Cooke’s first five albums come his final two, made on his own Tracey Records imprint before Cooke’s grim death in 1964. Ain’t That Good News features mighty protest song A Change Is Gonna Come, typical of the first side’s soul power, before the classy ballads kick in on Side Two. Recorded in New York in July 1964, At The Copa demonstrates Cooke’s command of an audience, switching from the smooth Frankie And Johnny to a persuasive Blowin’ In The Wind recorded at the height of the civil rights struggle. Making its vinyl debut, 2002’s Keep Movin’ On compiles 23 songs from Cooke’s Tracey years. It’s superb in highlighting how Cooke was moving soul forward, rawer and more urgent than ever. What a loss he was.