VA - Bring It On Home: Black America Sings Sam Cooke (2014)

Black America has been singing Sam Cooke for more than half a century. The volume of great songs that Sam wrote in a secular career spanning barely seven years is matched by the quality of those songs - many of which are fundamental to the evolution of soul music in the early-mid 60s.

Its therefore logical and right that Sam should appear in Ace UK's occasional Black America Sings... series, as he does this month in a package issued close to the 50th anniversary of his death in December 1964.

Bring It On Home features some of Sam's best-known songs (as well as - this being Ace - some of his least-known), many performed by artists whose careers Sam helped to get underway, including Johnnie Taylor, the Simms Twins, Mel Carter, and Bobby Womack.

Also featured are a number of singers who owe a vocal debt to Sam, including Brenton Wood, R.B. Greaves, Johnny Nash, Otis Redding and Louis Williams of the Ovations. 21 of the 23 featured recordings have never appeared on an Ace or Kent CD before. A suitably fitting tribute to a true giant of popular music and one whose influence pervades to this day.