For a few years during the early 1960s, Sam Cooke, the man with the golden croon, ran his own small record label, SAR Records. In addition to aiding the career of the post-Cooke Soul Stirrers, SAR unleashed an impressive array of talent--Bobby Womack and the Valentinos, Lou Rawls and the Pilgrim Travelers, and a young organist named Billy Preston. The singles they cut for his label are here, alongside unreleased demos from Cooke such as a spare, transporting take of "That's Heaven to Me." Story presents much evidence of the Soul Stirrers' continued greatness with Jimmie Outler as lead singer. And the tracks by R.H. Harris & His Gospel Paraders are stone groove gospel-soul cuts. Disc 2 presents the secular material, with solid jazz-funk cuts alongside swell pop-soul numbers. To top it all off, the packaging is deluxe, the notes informative, and the remastering first-rate. --Mike McGonigal