S. 12th Sunday Night Gospel Hour: The Soul Stirrers, “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” 1959.
Sam Cooke on the vocals. Not racy, exactly, but there is enough yearning and sensuality in the there to make it easy for one to see why he had such an easy transition from gospel into pop. The first time I ever heard this song, when I was 15 or so, I was bedridden with a fever of 103. It was accompanied by some marvelous hallucinations, as I recall.
Also, I am considering changing the name of this regular feature to S. 12th Socialist Secular Humanist Sunday Night Gospel Hour, just so you don’t think I’m trying to pull any funny business on you.
That said, as amazing as his pop records are, I am not sure Sam Cooke ever achieved this level of excellence again. This is one of the great vocal performances of all time, as far as I am concerned. That’s just not the teenage hallucinations talking, either.
