Joe Cocker – Joe Cocker!

With the album jacket featuring an image as iconic as Dylan on Blonde On Blonde, we find the 1960’s most lovable rogue setting his sights on becoming a classic hippie crooner with his delightful imaginative renditions of hands down solid material.

It would be easy to call Cocker’s musical re-arrangements stylizations, but they are far more, with Joe fronting one of the toughest and most wastedly sounding rhythm and blues bands (the Grease Band) of all time. Certainly not everyone is capable of carrying off the transition of a number like “Bird On The Wire” by Leonard Cohen, nor would most people even attempt to envision “With A Little Help From My Friends” and then jump head long into the most sacred of all of Dylan’s material … and I haven’t even mentioned his take on the John Sebastian song “Darling Be Home Soon,” a number that still rides deep in one of my pockets, though I haven’t taken it out and dusted it off in quite awhile.

These songs are hilariously funny, presented by what I can only describe as a circus clown on acid with a graveled voice, bespeaking one out of their element, if not out of their mind, yet there was just something so elemental and intrinsically romantic about hearing and seeing Joe that bewilders the senses, draws people in as true voyeurs, digging the fun Joe’s having on stage with himself and his frenzied phantom guitar, his wobbling stance, shaky hands and his battle to keep his microphone, as well as himself upright.

Above all else, Cocker was a showman, and one who’d been around for a very long time. In 1961 he played with the Cavaliers, holding down drums and harmonica. Later Cocker became the frontman of Vance Arnold & The Avengers. The name was a mixture of Vince Everett, Elvis Presley’s character in Jailhouse Rock, which Cocker had misheard as Vance, and country singer Eddy Arnold. While Vance Arnold & The Avengers mostly played in their local Sheffield pubs, Cocker’s first noteworthy gig was when he and the band ed the Rolling Stones at Sheffield City Hall in 1963. He had a blues band in the late 1960s of which there’s only one known recording, making the record high prized, "Rag Goes Mad At The Mojo". Following the release of his unsuccessful debut single, Cocker developed an interest in the blues and began scoping out records by Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and other likeminded R&B gypsies. His newfound love of the blues inspired him to form Joe Cocker’s Blues Band. Surprisingly he was also a friend of The Beatles, such a close friend that he released “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” before the Fab 4 did. All of this led Joe on a continual quest for the ultimate cover songs.

While Joe did have a previous album, it’s right here that Joe made his bones, shortly after his legendary performance at Woodstock and marking his claim to fame, with Joe Cocker! splashing its way into more homes than anyone could have ever imagined.

Review by Jenell Kesler