The restored Sam Cooke At The Copa reveals Cooke’s Copacabana performance with all of the nuance and passion that his adoring audience experienced fifty-five years ago. For those who never had a chance to hear Sam Cooke in person, Sam Cooke At The Copa affords the best seat in the house.
Sam Cooke’s set at the Copa is a microcosm of his overall career insofar as it mirrored the artist’s own eclecticism. Broadway, blues, folk, jazz, gospel and even country, and, of course, soul are represented on such tracks as “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Try A Little Tenderness,” “Amen,” and the hits “Twistin’ The Night Away,” “You Send Me” and “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.” Of special note is Cooke’s version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” that refected the struggle for civil rights then underway. Dylan’s song inspired Cooke to write his like themed masterpiece, “A Change Is Gonna Come”.