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Follow the past 50 years of Rock n' Roll as if it is happening today at Record Review of Sam Cooke's 1957 self titled debut LP from Gaslight Records If you had your hands on the wheel you'd realise the road is wrapping around the edges in front of us, but you like the way the wheel is turning itself. We've both agreed that 'gay paris' is sometimes relevant but that neither of us would ever say it. White leather interiors and aqua exteriors up on the cliffs above the ocean, it's a convertible and that's even okay, 'Danny Boy' is playing now and that's even okay cause Sam Cooke is singing it. You could even throw your hands up or let some kind of long scarf out into the breeze and I wouldn't hate you for it. My shirt's open to the world and I don't hate myself for it. 'Ol' Man River' sees the broken lines pass us by in perfect time. We should drive to Vermont and never go to sleep. It's okay to not have the right friends. I know I don't yet understand, but Sam Cooke's making me feel like I do. I know that we never understood those eggnog parties with the red sweaters and the Italian knit, shoestring, handmade crocodile leather, chino teeth, double stitched, freshly cut, short back and slow and steady. We were laughing cause we had to. I was sitting on part of the three piece sectional by the fire, and you were standing on the green lyno with the ladies talking spritzers' and love cause we had to. Bobby Vee was drawling through the dream time stereo and bouncing off the brain and out into the big black dull. The bodies were moving considerately. No one could come to an agreement as to why Bill had never married. Lorraine had locked the ill-disciplined dog in the kennel, couldn't have it crapping on the shampooed carpet and ruining Christmas. It was a night they'd all talk about for years. The kids were all chocolate faces and fire crackers. The stereo was melting. We had to leave before the walls melted, and we listen to 'You Send Me' and 'Tammy' on the way across the country. Sometimes worry free records are nice. Sometimes they even become something unintentionally profound in a way, and that is the case with this Sam Cooke album -- a record angled at the easy listener, if not by the artist then definitely by the record label, that instead has retained the power to take someone 50 years later into some kind of strangely self-reflective daydream. Read more record reviews at
