(PR) Sam Cooke is rightly credited with creating and defining "soul music," -- no one did it better. Had he lived, Cooke would have turned 80 on January 22, 2011. While Cooke's untimely death at the age of 33 was tragic and deprived successive generations of new music, his influence and legacy is of such magnitude that his artistry is still enjoyed by fans the world over to this day. ABKCO Records and Hdtracks are thrilled to make available, for the first time ever, in high resolution digital audio four of Cooke's core albums - Sam Cooke at the Copa, Keep Movin' On, Ain't That Good News and the career-encompassing compilation Portrait Of A Legend 1951 – 1964. These seminal works are finally available for download in 88.2kHz/24bit audio.
To bring the listener closer than ever before to the full artistry of Sam Cooke's music, ABKCO Records and HDtracks employed the most advanced analog-to-digital transfer and mastering technologies. Extensive analysis of the first generation analog master tapes, retrieved from vaults in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, involved painstaking research to determine the best mastering sources.
The sound quality now available on the ABKCO Records and HDtracks high-resolution 88.2-kHz/24-bit downloads is precisely what Sam Cooke and his fellow musicians heard when the engineer pressed the "playback" button in the studio. The music has never sounded better than it does now.
"Sam Cooke is somebody other singers have to measure themselves against, and most of them go back to pumping gas!" -- Keith Richards
ABKCO Records and HDtracks proudly present four Sam Cooke albums in high-resolution 88.2-kHz/24-bit audio for the first time anywhere:
Sam Cooke: Sam Cooke at the Copa was recorded on July 7th and 8th, 1964, and it was one of the finest live soul performances ever captured on tape. In 1964 the times were changing fast, so Cooke performed a rousing rendition of Bob Dylan's then newly written "Blowin' in the Wind." Sam Cooke at the Copa captures Cooke at the peak of his powers. Producer and 17-time Grammy winner Al Schmitt said of this record, "This is one of my all-time favorite albums."
Sam Cooke: Portrait Of A Legend 1951-1964 includes music from his teenage debut as a fully-fledged member of the legendary Soul Stirrers in 1951, through his long streak of Top 10 Billboard Pop Chart hits that, of course, began with "You Send Me" and continued through "Chain Gang," "Twistin' The Night Away," "Another Saturday Night" and "Shake." Portrait Of A Legend 1951- 1964 includes thirty Cooke classics
Sam Cooke: Keep Movin' On is a spectacular collection of singles, album tracks and unreleased gems by the father of soul music. The hits, like "(Ain't That) Good News" and "Good Times," sound great next to lesser-known tunes like "Yeah Man" and "Falling in Love" and the title track that had been unreleased for almost 40 years.
Sam Cooke: Ain't That Good News is the album that provided the context in which Cooke's most historically resonant song "A Change Is Gonna Come" was originally presented, along with eleven other masterful classics.
"We wanted to create a digital music site with high quality recordings that music lovers would enjoy. With HDtracks you truly get the same level of quality that you receive when buying a CD or DVD-Audio from a traditional record store," – HDtracks.
