Joe Cocker

Joe Cocker (born John Robert Cocker, 20 May 1944, in Sheffield, England) is an English rock/blues musician.

Career

He started his musical career in the city of his birth Sheffield, England in some minor bands at the age of 15: the first band was the Avengers (under the stage name Vance Arnold), then Big Blues (1963), and then The Grease Band (1966). His first single was the first of several The Beatles covers, "I'll Cry Instead".

After minor success in the UK with the single "Marjorine", he entered the big time with a groundbreaking rearrangement of "With a Little Help from My Friends," another Beatles cover, this time from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, featuring lead guitar from Jimmy Page, which topped the UK singles chart in November 1968 for one week.

In the mid-seventies, he spent time in the Worcester, MA metro-area, specifically the Emerald-Isle Bar and Grill.

In 1969 he appeared at the Woodstock Music Festival ^* His performance included the following tracks

Delta Lady
Some Things Goin' On
Let's Go Get Stoned
I Shall Be Released
With a Little Help from My Friends

Cocker then had a second UK hit with the Leon Russell song "Delta Lady". He had further success covering Beatles tunes in 1970 with his version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" off their Abbey Road album. Though his British success proved difficult to sustain, he enjoyed several chart entries in the US with "Cry Me a River" and "Feelin' Alright" by Dave Mason. In 1970, his cover of the Box Tops' hit "The Letter", which appeared on the live album Mad Dogs & Englishmen, became his first US Top Ten hit.

In 1969 he was featured on The Ed Sullivan Show. Onstage, he often exhibited a physical intensity as he sang, flailing his arms around and playing an air guitar, ocassionally giving superfluous cues to his band.

In the beginning of 1970s he had problems with drugs including alcohol. He managed to make a comeback in the 1980s and 1990s with several hits, including:

"Up Where We Belong", (Academy Award winning song written by Buffy Sainte-Marie and sung with Jennifer Warnes for the motion picture An Officer and a Gentleman);
"You Are So Beautiful";
"You Can leave Your Hat On"
"When The Night Comes";
"N'oubliez Jamais"
"Unchain My Heart"

Cocker performed the opening set at Woodstock '94 as one of the few alumni who played at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969, and was very well received.

He continues to tour sporadically.

He is sometimes known as "The Sheffield Soul Shouter".

Album discography

With a Little Help from My Friends (1969)
Joe Cocker! (1969)
Mad Dogs & Englishmen (1970)
Joe Cocker (1972)
I Can Stand A Little Rain (1974)
Jamaica Say You Will (1975)
Stingray (1976)
Greatest Hits (1977)
Luxury You Can Afford (1978)
Sheffield Steel (1982)
Civilized Man (1984)
Cocker (1986)
Unchain My Heart (1987)
One Night Of Sin (1989)
Joe Cocker Live (1990)
Night Calls (1992)
The Best Of Joe Cocker (1993)
Have A Little Faith (1994)
The Long Voyage Home (1995)
Organic (1996)
Across From Midnight (1997)
Greatest Hits (1998)
No Ordinary World (1999)
Respect Yourself (2002)
Ultimate Collection (2004)
Heart & Soul (2005)

Trivia

Joe was a friend of the family of Jarvis Cocker of Pulp fame, and babysat for him, although the two are not related.

In 1976, Cocker performed "Feelin' Alright" on Saturday Night Live. John Belushi joined him on stage doing his famous impersonation of Cocker's stage movements. ^*

Reference

Joe Cocker: The Authorised Biography by J. P. Bean (2003) ISBN 1852270438

External links

The Official Website of Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker (Fansite)
Fansite at Myspace.com
Joe Cocker's career on A&M Records with gallery, international discography
Photos taken by photographer Linda Wolf, one of the two official photographers of the Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour, 1970

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Career

Album discography

Trivia

Reference

External links