Sam Cooke – Cooke’s Tour (1960):  Sam Cooke has one of the magnificent voices in R&B music and is often credited with founding the soul music genre.  Cooke’s Tour is his first album after signing with RCA Victor Records, then one of the biggest record labels in the world.  This is a change of pace for Sam Cooke to say the least, with most songs being mainstream pop numbers, not R&B songs, and with arrangements being heavily instrumented with strings and horns.  Particularly during the early 1960’s, recording artists were at the mercy of the record companies, and the same songs turn up over and over on albums from that period.  Cooke’s Tour is not his best album, but Sam Cooke could sing the telephone book and probably sound just fine.