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‘You Gotta Move’ is an awesomely bluesy slice taken from Sam Cooke’s 1963 album, Night Beat.  Now I love me a bit of Sam Cooke as much as anyone else, but sometimes it feels like all those strings typical of his biggest hits overpower songs which would be just as good, if not better, in a simpler form. Night Beat is a great album simply because it uses a much smaller band of incredibly talented musicians: Billy Preston, the organ player, was just 16 at the time this track was recorded (and he later featured on the Rolling Stones’ live version of the song). Barney Kessel, on guitar, had featured earlier as the only white musician (with his fingers stained darker with berry juice!) in the 1944 short film, Jammin’ The Blues (a must-watch, if you’ve not seen it before. It’s effortlessly cool and the shots are just delicious). Drummer, Hal Blaine, in his lifetime, “played on 50 number one hits, over 150 top ten hits and has recorded, by his own admission, on over 35,000 pieces of music over four decades of work.” It’s little wonder that with a dream team of musicians like this, the album only took 3 nights to record. Legends.

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KS