Sam Cooke – Portrait Of A Legend 1951-1964

A phenomenal collection of songs with a clear, well balanced sound. These digital transfers sound fantastic and don’t suffer from over compression so commonly heard in reissues of these types of albums. Don't hesitate to snag this if you see a good copy in the wild.

I owned the CD since around 2004-2005, and played it to death. I broke down and added this to my Sam Cooke collection a couple years ago, and it is far and away the best sounding Cooke record I own. Plus the song selection really encompasses the full body of his work, not just the pop hits found on the other comps.

I used to have Sam Cooke's THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC on cassette years ago, and loved it. PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND shares many of the same songs, although it's missing "That's Heaven To Me" and "Soothe Me". However, this collection has vastly improved audio, and excellent liner notes by Peter Guralnick. My copy was purchased new on clearance, and it's a really nice pressing on 180g blue vinyl with a mix of mono and stereo mixes, and a hidden interview (side 4, track 7). There's a nice consistency to the sound quality throughout. This is a well done reissue, both vinyl and packaging.

An outstanding collection of the best of Sam Cooke. The pressing and mastering here are fantastic. Clean, smooth and full of resonance. A+

Not impressed so much with the quality of the pressing. Mine isn't as quiet as others, even after ultrasonic. Still a great compilation

Is this mono or stereo? ....... words words words words words

I have a black wax version of this that has almost identical matrix/runout info. Has a different
UPC 0 18771 92641 2, small “Made in Czech Republic” sticker on back cover, Made in the EU, and LC22670 on bottom of back cover. Found this in a U.S. Walmart a while back. Has some light/medium pops on side 2 that will not come clean, otherwise isn’t bad surface noise wise.

This pressing sounds fantastic for colored discs + how many tracks they fit on a side.

As far as all the comments about how transparent the discs are: I have 1 disc that is more transparent than the other.

Disc 1 is more opaque and my disc 2 is a beautiful crystal electric blue color

Stupid question, but how was this falsely advertised as a transparent blue? The hype sticker clearly says that it is "blue 180 gram double vinyl", no mention of a transparent/lucent disk. Was it advertised on the Target site as such?

Edit: Nevermind, the mockups shown on the site advertise something very different that's a lot more akin to a translucent blue rather than an opaque one. https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_32d4a5ad-5339-4d30-9a6e-93aec8e15f8a?wid=1002&hei=1002&fmt=pjpeg
Possibly two slightly different colour variants?

The Sam Cooke compilation to get- pretty much everything older single LP and double LP compilations had plus a few covers. Full credits on the inner sleeve plus a track by track annotation by Cooke's biographer Peter Guralnick. This is an analog tape to digital transfer and nothing wrong with that. The mastering is by Bob Ludwig and the pressing and sound on vinyl is glorious. One inner sleeve comes with all the song credits and list of musicians, with the 2nd LP inner sleeve left blank. Just for visual elegance I wish they had spaced the type/ credits to both sleeves. But that's a minor quibble. Side 4 ends with a short Cooke interview which is a fun l& endearing listen. It is uncredited. The interviewer is hip too.