Sam Cooke, inventor and true King of Soul, recorded Mr. Soul in the same year as Night Beat, and seems to be its more adult counterpart, with soulful ballads taking up most of the album.
The last of his studio albums released in his lifetime, Sam Cooke's Ain't That Good News offers a lot of superb material, pointing in several directions that, alas, were to go largely unexplored.
The UK punk band The Stranglers formed in Guildford in 1974, and their first LP, IV Rattus Norvegicus was released by United Artists in April 1977, rising to Number 4 in the UK album charts.