It was so great to hear Gregg Geller’s voice on NPR talking about Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club on the fiftieth anniversary of its recording.
The album itself was not released for another twenty-two years – and it might not have come out then if it hadn’t been for Gregg.
We all knew about it – J.W. Alexander, Sam Cooke’s business partner and friend, whose voice you can hear among the on-stage back-up singers, had described it in detail to Joe McEwen and me, and Gregg had no trouble finding it in the vaults. But Allen Klein controlled the rights, and his relationship with RCA over the years could only be described as fraught at best.
Gregg was not RCA, though – Gregg was Gregg – and Allen quickly recognized the difference, making a deal which would include Harlem Square, a wonderful Greatest Hits package which would become the model for the current Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964 (ABKCO), and planned reissues of Live at the Copa and Night Beat (both of which ended up coming out on ABKCO).

Gregg produced the Harlem Square album, I wrote the liner notes, Joe was “spiritual adviser” (something like that), and it led to a life-long friendship with Allen for the three of us. Sam was Allen’s favorite all-time artist, no contest – maybe his favorite person – and “Nothing Can Change This Love” was his favorite song, a typically bittersweet Sam Cooke composition (all sweet on the outside, with its “cake-and-ice cream” lyrics, but undercut by both subtle minor-key allusions and Sam’s deeply wistful delivery). That is what this interview ends with, by Gregg’s altogether appropriate choice.

Listen to the piece on NPR: click here

More about Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke: click here