My Gospel Roots by Sam Cooke

Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

The rise of a Chicago preacher's kid to stardom, first in gospel music and then in mainstream pop, followed by a sad and sordid death at the age of 33 in a seedy motel room in Los Angeles, sounds like the plot for a tacky film noir, but that in a nutshell is the story of Sam Cooke. In the '50s, the Soul Stirrers were one of the leading groups in gospel music, with a string of memorable and classic songs, but in 1957 Sam departed to pursue a pop music career, with hits such as "Chain Gang", "Cupid", "What A Wonderful World" and "Twisting The Night Away". The 23 tracks on this CD (which should by rights be credited to both Sam and the Soul Stirrers, but I quibble) include some of the aforementioned memorable and classic songs, recorded for Specialty between 1951 and 1953 - "Peace In the Valley", "Come And Go To That Land", "Jesus Gave Me Water" and many more. Audio quality is good considering the age of the material, and if you're an aficionado of Gospel's Golden Age, when the Stirrers and the other legendary quartets were struttin' their stuff along the Gospel Highway, then this is for you, that's if you haven't got some of the re-issues by Ace who have already superbly trawled the Specialty catalogue.