ABKCO Records is preparing to release 'Keep Movin' On,' a 23-song collection by the late Sam Cooke that promises to bring the soul and sound of this visionary artist into the new century and beyond. The package, to be released January 15, 2002, encompasses some of Cooke's best loved and most incisive songs and represents the artist both at the very pinnacle and, tragically, at the very end of his ground breaking career

The songs that comprise 'Keep Movin' On' were, for the most part, written and produced by Sam Cooke following his successful fight for complete creative and economic control over his recordings and repertoire. The notion of artistic self-determination was an unheard of concept for virtually any recording artist, let alone a young rhythm and blues singer in the early 1960's. The album includes ``A Change Is Gonna Come,'' a song that has been singled out as one of the most important statements to arise from the civil rights struggle. It was, in fact, used in Spike Lee's ``Malcolm X'' and will be heard in a version sung by Al Green in ``Ali'' the forthcoming Muhammad Ali biopic starring Will Smith. The track was donated in 1964 to be the keystone of a fund raising album issued by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference entitled 'The Stars Salute Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'