Sam Cooke writes soul songs that sound like how I want soul songs to sound. They have light, basic instrumentation, often accompanied by a swinging drum beat, and immediately memorable melodies. It sounds like the simplest formula, and certainly there is no dearth of soul groups, especially not from the middle of last century, but I don't know if any group or single musician recorded as many great songs as Sam Cooke.

His catalogue is too large, and strong, for me to really attempt to hit all the highlights. That's actually why I am so infatuated with his music. It seems like every time iTunes throws on one of his recordings, I'm always completely floored. He has this warm feel to his voice that, combined with the poor sound quality produced by studios in those times, creates this really interesting textured sound. The melodies are all in key and he never sounds flat, but it lacks the polish of autotune and digital recording where countless vocal takes are chopped up and interspersed with each other to get the melody that will ultimately be tweaked further by modern recording equipment. Analog recording gives you less control and I have little doubt that we are often hearing full takes of verses, choruses, or even entire songs. The result is something less than perfect and astoundingly human.

Sam Cooke - "Whole Lotta Woman"; "Twistin' The Night Away"; "Cupid"