“You Send Me” by Sam Cooke

"You Send Me" was Sam Cooke's first single, released on Keen Records in 1957, and he wrote it himself, words and music, before it turned up on his 1958 album Songs by Sam Cooke. Bumps Blackwell produced it, and René Hall arranged and conducted and plays guitar next to Clifton White, with Ted Brinson on bass and Earl Palmer on drums; Alicia Adams, Sue Allen, Lee Gotch and Charles Parlato sing backup.

Cooke glides over it all so easily it barely sounds like singing. It went to number one on both Billboard's R&B chart and the Hot 100, the only time he topped the latter. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame later named it one of the 500 most important recordings in rock and roll, and Rolling Stone ranked it 115th among the greatest songs of all time in 2010.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.