Sam Cooke's Night Beat: A Celebration of Soul's Roots
- Butcher Boy
- Sep 9
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 16
Night Beat (1963) is Sam Cooke’s 10th studio album, recorded in 3 nights at RCA Victor Studios.
Sam Cooke was an era and genre defining artist, known as “The King of Soul”. He was born in 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi (home to blues legends John Lee Hooker, Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and more) to parents Anne Marie Cook (born Carrol) and Rev. Charles Cook. Along with many others in their community, the Cook family relocated to Chicago when Sam was a young child. He grew up singing in church choirs and doo-wop groups. Cooke’s roots (and the roots of soul music) shine through on this record.
The first track, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, is an African American spiritual that dates back to before the Civil War. It opens up with a haunting bowed bass and drum moment and then kicks into the tune with a grooving guitar. He repeatedly cries out “glory, hallelujah” like a Baptist minister with the crystal-clear tone and embellishments of a doo-wop singer.
The album distinguishes itself from much of Sam Cooke's other solo studio albums with its intimate setting. Many of Cooke’s records have a larger than life quality to them with their choirs and string sections. The only background vocals on this record are on Shake, Rattle and Roll where the band calls out “Shake, rattle and roll” as a call and response to Cooke’s Ad-Lib vocals. The instrumentation is exactly what you would find at blues clubs in Chicago or a Baptist church.
The record feels like an evening with Sam Cooke and his band at your favorite cozy club (for me Evanston’s SPACE or the Jazz Showcase). Part of this comes from the wide stereo spread. In the early 60s, stereo was a brand new development. The stereo LP was invented in 1957 and affordable stereo systems were widespread by the mid 60s. Studios were making the switch to stereo recording and were experimenting with this new capability. Early stereo recordings featured hard panned mono tracks, for example drums on the right and guitars on the left. Famously the first five or so Beatles records (With The Beatles also came out in the US in 1963) were remastered from mono to stereo in a similar way, leaving modern listeners with only one earbud in very confused where half of the song went.
The record also celebrates the musicianship of Cooke’s band. The guitar intro on I Lost Everything has this old school twang with smooth jazzy voicings that are a precursor to neo-soul guitar today. In the comic relief song of the album, Little Red Rooster, Cooke calls out, “Play it Billy” to 17 year old Billy Preston as he kicks into a tasty solo. On Laughing and Clowning he tells Ray Johnson, whose playing on this record is incredible, to tickle the keys as Cooke hums. The spotlight on musicianship brings the vibrancy of a live show and sense of humanity to the record.
Night Beat embodies the most important characteristics of soul music for me. There’s a deep pain and sadness that's met with grace, humor and storytelling. The emotions in the songs are underscored with groove and highlighted by excellent musicianship. It’s instantly relatable and has a great depth that comes from its simplicity. Night Beat is a quintessential break up album and a masterpiece that cements Sam Cooke as an icon.
Clifton White, Barney Kessel – guitar
Cliff Hils – bass
Sharky Hall – drums, tambourine
Hal Blaine – drums
Ray Johnson – piano
Billy Preston – organ
Dave Hassinger – recording engineer
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