Overnight Sensational

1	I Can't Stand the Rain / Wynonna 3:52
2	Better to Have and Not Need 3:53
3	Blame It on the Rain / Fantasia 3:26
4	Lookin' for a Love 3:23
5	Ain't No Love 4:46
6	None of Us Are Free 4:03
7	It's Only Make Believe 3:08
8	Don't Play That Song (You Lied) 3:29
9	If I Had No Loot / Nikka Costa 4:22
10	Riding Thumb 3:50
11	We Shall Be Free / Paul Rogers 3:25
12	You Are So Beautiful 3:41

Barnes & Noble

Sam Moore could sing the phonebook, and producer Randy Jackson could get that phonebook a record deal and a boatload of guest stars. Together, they've recorded this long-overdue reintroduction of Moore for the American Idol set. It's hard to judge Jackson's affection for Moore: Does he pile on the guest stars as a tribute to Sam's talent, or to sweeten the album's allure for pop fans forgetful of one of soul's signature voices? If it's the former, why such a grab bag of stars -- Sting, Springsteen, Billy Preston -- plus B-list Jackson protégés including Van Hunt and Zucchero? For his part, Sam Moore remains a soul explosion, and when he isn't buried under a guest-star's melisma, his voice rings out with power and authority. Very little seems to have changed since the days of "Hold On, I'm Comin'." And far from the phonebook, Moore is given some great, if occasionally predictable material, including "None of Us Are Free" (mined by Solomon Burke for his Joe Henry-led rebirth) and some country songs along the lines of Conway Twitty's "It's Only Make Believe." For all the gestures to soul and the old school, Jackson smoothes most of the edges off of the instrumentation, and the phoned-in contributions from the raft of guest stars don't even pretend to in-studio spontaneity. Moore, though, takes it in stride, seemingly as pliant to his producer's vision in 2006 as he was in the '60s. That's what used to be known as professionalism, and more than anything, Overnight Sensation proves Moore a consummate pro. He even gives the spotlight over to the late Billy Preston on the closing "You Are So Beautiful." Now that's old-school. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

Some sage told us years ago that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Overnight Sensational is an album with enough good intentions to choke a horse. Sam Moore was one of the great men of 1960s soul as half of Sam & Dave, but like his former partner Dave Prater (who passed away in 1988) once the duo broke up, Moore had a hard time getting a solo career off the ground, and his star turned dim in the '70s. There's no arguing that Sam Moore deserves a second shot at the spotlight, and his voice is still in fine shape, but his wife and manager, Joyce Moore, decided that the best way to relaunch Sam's career was to create an "event" album around him, with a name producer and a gaggle of guest stars. On Overnight Sensational, the name producer turns out to be Randy Jackson, a session musician best known as one of the judges on American Idol, and Jackson has saddled Moore with some dubious choices in terms of material and duet partners (many of whom, judging from the credits, weren't even in the same room with Moore when they recorded their parts). If you ever dreamed of hearing Sam Moore sing songs made famous by Milli Vanilli, Garth Brooks, Seals & Crofts, and Conway Twitty, well, this is your lucky day, but while Moore gives each song his level best, the cheese factor on this album is woefully high. It's true that Moore has a long, rich tradition of singing with a partner, but Wynonna Judd, Paul Rodgers, Fantasia, and Zucchero blend with Moore about as well as oil mixes with water, with Mariah Carey's wordless melismatic wanderings on "It's Only Make Believe" slinking under the line as the album's low point. Fortunately, however, Moore, who must have some spiritual tie to New Jersey, does have a track apiece with Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, the artists who come off the best by a considerable margin here and consequently save this album's day. Mark Deming