Twistin' The Night Away
Label:
Songs:
Produced by Hugo & Luigi, Recorded in Hollywood, California. Engineer: Al Schmitt
Arranged and Conducted by Rene Hall
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Reviews
From Melody Maker, July 31st, 1976
"When gospel singer Sam Cooke went secular and made a lot of cash he was merely following the now well trodden path but Cooke was unique because he was one of the first black artists to keep a tight hand on the direction of his career and the profits thereof. When the Twist came along, coursey of Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker, Sam wrote another dance-craze classic, "Twistin' The Night Away," the kingpin of these 1962 tracks which were produced by those eminences of pop-soul Hugo & Luigi.
- Backside Text -
HIS SMASH HIT..PLUS 11 MORE LIKE IT!!!
At last count, there were 530, 768,094 twist albums being sold in record stores, or so it seemed. Of the grand total, there is a handful of really great twist albums which belong on top of the best-seller charts for one reason – the public wants them and they are hits.
The word hit is the clue to Sam Cooke’s Twistin’the Night Away, Written by Sam himself (no mean composer, what with the giant successes such as Chain Gang and Cupid behind him), the song was first released as a single record. In a market where DJs and radio stations were being flooded with hundreds of twist records (weekly!), Sam’s performance quietly separated itself from the chaff and shot right up to the top of the “most-programed” radio charts. Skyrocketing store demand followed and, by the time you read this, the single will be well on its way to the coveted gold-record award denoting a million-seller.
In the record business, this kind of action means only one thing – the people want more of the same, but fast!
Here it is – twelve spine-tingling twistertunes by one of the really great pop performers of our day.
In addition to writing the title song, Sam applied his fine compositional talents to many of the other tunes in the album. Cooke originals include Soothe Me, Somebody Have Mercy and Sugar Dumpling. Sam also adapted the twist beat and a lyric twist to a number of songs your mother may or may note have taught you; three traditional American favorites include Twistin’ in the Kitchen with Dinah, Camptown Twist and Twistin’ in the Old Town Tonight. There are twelve real rockers all told in the album.
Twisters of the world unite! You have nothin’ to lose but your chains, gang (copyright Sam Cooke). Get the turnable revolution goin’ and start ‘Twistin’ the Night Away!