It wasn’t simply Sam Cooke’s emotive voice and distinctive singing fashion that made him such a strong drive in in style music. It was additionally the truth that he sang about on a regular basis points that his followers may establish with. When he instructed us about being alone on but “Another Saturday Night,” everyone listened, together with a soon-to-be 15-year-old Londoner we’d later come to know as Cat Stevens.
Cooke’s authentic of his personal composition was a surprisingly chirpy-sounding association for a narrative of a man who was new on the town and starved of feminine firm. “It’s hard on a fella when he don’t know his way around,” he lamented. The truth that he’d simply bought paid didn’t appear to assist. “If I could meet ’em I could get ’em,” he went on, “but as yet I haven’t met ’em, that’s why I’m in the shape I’m in.”
The tune struck a chord with each pop and soul followers, going to No.1 on the R&B chart and No.10 pop. It additionally hit No.23 within the UK, though that was a lesser rating than the Prime 10 standing of Sam’s three earlier hits there, “Chain Gang,” “Cupid” and ”Twistin’ The Evening Away.”
“Another Saturday Night” was quickly attracting cowl variations, together with an fascinating 1964 interpretation by rock’n’roll totem Gene Vincent and his band of the day, the Shouts. Take heed to the best way he alters a few of the lyrics and provides the tune moderately a special really feel, in a recording that lasts exactly 1’39.”
In 1970, vocal craftsman Lou Rawls included a subtly funky studying of the tune on Deliver It On Dwelling and Different Sam Cooke Hits. The album was an entire set of songs first reduce by Rawls’ outdated good friend and collaborator. 4 years later, as Cat Stevens continued to command large audiences along with his superior singer-songwriter work on a string of hit albums and singles, the Englishman determined to place his stamp on the tune.
What was uncommon is that Stevens’ tackle “Another Saturday Night” was a non-album single, even along with his Buddha and the Chocolate Field LP having fun with immense reputation and providing up hits of its personal. “Oh Very Young” was a Prime 10 single from the set within the US, and “Ready” would go Prime 30. However in between got here the Sam Cooke cowl, which climbed to No.6 in America, his highest-ever place there, additionally achieved with the hymn “Morning Has Broken” in 1972.
It was ironic, then, that the 2 largest US hits for one of the crucial completed composers of the day got here with songs he didn’t write. Cat’s Cooke tribute entered the British chart on August 24, 1974 and went on to No.19 there, No.10 in New Zealand, and all the best way to No.1 in Canada.
Store for Yusuf / Cat Stevens’s music on vinyl or CD now.
