Reviewed by Tony Cummings

It's one of the peculiarities that the Highway QC's formed in Chicago in 1945 were to produce not one but three singers who were to crossover from gospel music to the lucrative R&B field where they enjoyed million sellers. As it turned out though, the teenage Sam Cooke's four and a half years with the Highway QC's went unrecorded while Lou Rowls too didn't visit the recording studio during his stint with the group. It was only the third R&B-star-in-waiting, Johnnie Taylor, who recorded with the QC's and his unmistakable tones, like a grittier voiced Sam Cooke, are heard on several sides here with the gifted Taylor writing all but one of the eight songs they recorded (seven of them are here). Listening with hindsight it's both sad and confusing to hear the soulful intensity of 1955's "Somewhere To Lay My Head" and the joyful expectation of 1956's "I Dreamed Heaven Was Like This" and compare them with the carnal drive of 1968's "Who's Makin' Love" and the banality of 1976's "Disco Lady". But I digress. This 28-song, double CD offers recordings from the Highway QC's golden age with the great VeeJay Records from 1955 to 1964. Even after Taylor departed the quartet, the QC's made some magnificent music with the soulful lead doing wonders on "There's Something On My Mind" while throughout the harmonies are truly heavenly. Classic quartet music for both connoisseurs and new devotees of the genre.

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