Reviewed by Tony May

Oh my, the Soul Stirrers again. Well somebody must be buying all these vintage black gospel re-issues, not the Christian music buying fraternity apparently despite the go-buy exhortations of Greybeard Cummings, but there you go. 28 tracks here too all but one featuring the glory of Sam Cooke taking the lead vocals as only he could do. Surely one of the all-time great voices. The only slight hiccup in an otherwise delightful programme is the inclusion, for completist and historical purposes presumably, of several incomplete tracks, and even a false start on "Were You There" including Sam's comment, "That's too fast, don't rush me". You can see the problem; it's an odd arrangement of the standard spiritual. Plenty of good stuff here, but something approaching irritation at various stages. Still, we should be grateful to have these performances preserved at all.

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