The Man Who Invented Soul
Sam Cooke had a voice like clover honey, and he was as  ingenious a businessman as he was an artist--carefully treading the  line between smooth pop and deep R&B; to bring both audiences to him, as  well as together. Disc 1 of this set compiles his 1957-1959 recordings  for the Keen label, which had tamed the former gospel tiger into a  sweet, wry songwriter with a taste for crooning standards and a  signature yodel that marked every song as his property. The second and  third discs do the same for his RCA career's singles and album tracks,  which, for all their orchestrated slickness, left an indelible mark on  soul and even rock (compare "That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On" to Elvis  Costello's "Blame It On Cain"!). Lastly, there's a disc with two  complete albums from Cooke's stylistic poles:Night Beat(after-hours cool soul) andLive at the Harlem Square Club(Cooke as hard-hollering crowd mover). As a survey of the middle period  of Cooke's career, this set is totally solid; be advised, though, that  it skips over both his early years shouting gospel with theSoul Stirrersand  the classic recordings from the last year or so of his life--which  include hits such as "Shake" and "A Change Is Gonna Come" that are  still, flabbergastingly, out of print.--Douglas Wolk