Chain Gang-Sam Cooke (Cover)

This was Cooke's second-biggest American hit, his first hit single for RCA Victor after leaving Keen Records earlier in 1959, and was also his first top 10 hit since "You Send Me" from 1957, and his second-biggest pop single. The song was inspired after a chance meeting with an actual chain gang of prisoners on a highway, seen while Cooke was on tour.[2]

Cooke was reportedly unsatisfied with the initial recording sessions of this song at RCA Studios in Manhattan in January 1960, and came back three months later to redo some of the vocals to get the effect he wanted.