Those we still miss on their birthdays too | Remembering Joe Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014)

 

Photo: Linda Wolf

FEELIN’ ALRIGHT! 

(Mr David Mason)

Don's Tunes

Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen - Feelin' Alright

Cocker was greatly influenced by musicians such as Ray Charles, Lonny Donegan and others of that ilk. An eager performer debuting at the age of twelve, Cocker soon formed his own band with his school friends. After leaving school, Cocker’s dreams suffered a setback, as in order to survive in the real world, he had to take up a job as a gas fitter.

However, his passion couldn’t be suppressed for long. In 1961, he promptly formed another group called Vance Arnold and the Avengers and started doing small gigs in various pubs. The name Vance Arnold was influenced by an amalgamation of Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock character and the celebrated country singer Eddie Arnold. The music the group performed were mainly covers of Chuck Berry and Ray Charles’ songs. His effort to make a mark with the Beatles ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ cover from Decca records in 1964 failed miserably and, ultimately, made him far more restless. He yet again formed a new band called the Joe Cocker’s Blues Band after dissolving the former one. This constant cycle of making and breaking up a group can be seen as Cocker’s effort to create something original, something defining.

 In 1968 Cocker got what he was running after for years, his first commercial breakthrough with the cover song ‘With the Little Help from My Friends’. What followed this success was years of aggressive touring in different countries which Cocker, perhaps predictably, soon got tired of.

Paul McCartney, while talking about the cover after Cocker’s death, said: “He was a lovely northern lad who I loved a lot and, like many people, I loved his singing. I was especially pleased when he decided to cover “With a Little Help from My Friends” and I remember him and (producer) Denny Cordell coming round to the studio in Savile Row  and playing me what they’d recorded and it was just mind-blowing, totally turned the song into a soul anthem and I was forever grateful to him for doing that.”

Pubali Dasgupta / Far Out

The Letter - Joe Cocker Mad Dogs Tour

Thanks as ever to Don Draper’s Tunes for the reminder . .