"For decades, this was a frustrating record. It captured Cooke in excellent voice, it just wasn't really a "soul" album, except perhaps in the tamest possible definition. Playing to an upscale, largely white supper-club audience, in a very conservatively run venue, Cooke toned down his performance and chose the safest material with which he could still be comfortable, like "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Bill Bailey," and "When I Fall in Love". True, his renditions may be the versions of any of those songs that any R&B fan will like best, but they always seemed a poor substitute for what's not here - not just the songs that he didn't do, but the intense, sweaty presentation. The release of "Live At The Harlem Square Club" solved that problem, giving us a real Sam Cooke concert. And so "Sam Cooke At The Copa" became much more valuable as a representative of that other side of Cooke's sound and career. So paired with "Live At The Harlem Square Club", it is an irreplaceable document." (Bruce Eder, Allmusic)
