<Tr> <Td> Allmusic </Td> <Td> link (2005 reissue) link </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Blender </Td> <Td> Oct. 2005 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mojo </Td> <Td> (favorable) </Td> </Tr> <P> Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 has generally been considered among the best live LPs ever released . In the year of its release (1985), it was ranked at number 11 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll, as well as being named one of NME's albums of the year . Steve Leggett for Allmusic feels that "Not only is this one of the greatest live soul albums ever released, it also reveals a rougher, rawer, and more immediate side to Sam Cooke that his singles only hinted at, good as they were (...) the crucial key is and was always Cooke's vocals, and while he was a marvelously smooth, versatile, and urbane singer on his official pop recordings, here he explodes into one of the finest sets of raw secular gospel ever captured on tape . It is essential listening in any version ." </P>

One night stand sam cooke live at the harlem square club