Remembering Joe Cocker
(20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014)
Joe Cocker was born as John Cocker in Sheffield on this day in 1944. You are so beautiful.
Joe Cocker - Delta Lady (Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
A blunt Yorkshireman with the voice of an American soul singer, Joe became one of the most unlikely success stories of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He was born in the midst of World War II in the steel city of Sheffield, where his father served as an aircraftman in the Royal Air Force. His mother was a housewife. At birth, he was given the name John, but it would be under a nickname that he would later become a voice still heard on radios today.
His only real ambition was to escape his hometown. He left school at 16, his headmaster’s parting words a blunt, “Hard luck.” From there, he became an apprentice gas fitter while simultaneously pursuing a career in music. The young boy spent his days working and his nights chasing something bigger in smoke-filled bars.
“His voice had hardly broken and there was no way you could recognize his talent but his enthusiasm was undeniable and he had that desire to perform which was there throughout his career,” his brother told The Star.
”I thought he was going to take up gas fitting as a career. I even got him a lot of books on the subject, and he was interested in gas for a time, but there was always the music. He told me he didn’t want a job where he worked for years and years and then got presented with a gold watch at the end,” his mother once shared.
Joe Cocker pictured with his mum in 1973 | Sheffield Newspapers
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