RCA
1986
Man and His Music
About This Album
When this 28-song compilation (two LPs/one CD) originally appeared, it was the first serious exploration of Sam Cooke's catalog ever done. What's more, a lot of care went into the selection, if not the packaging -- despite the fact that it has no annotation, or even release dates on its 28 songs, The Man and His Music is still the only comprehensive single-volume collection of the hits and highlights of Cooke's career from the mid-'50s to his last sides in 1964. What's more, it's out of print, and it is likely to be the last such compilation that we'll ever see, because in the years since its release, the ownership of Cooke's post-1963 sides (comprising his most advanced and ambitious soul recordings) shifted from RCA to ABKCO, and the chances are next to non-existent that either company will ever license its portion of Cooke's catalog to the other. There are better-sounding collections and better-annotated collections, to be sure, and fuller collections -- in 2000, RCA issued The Man Who Invented Soul, a four-CD that goes deeper into Cooke's output from 1958 through 1963; and in 2002, ABKCO issued Keep Movin' On, a single-disc compilation covering Cooke's 1964 sides, including his final hits.
Track List

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.