By: PAULO SILVESTRE
JOE COCKER is coming to Portugal on May 21 at Pavilhão Municipal de V. N. de Gaia, Vila Nova de Gaia, near Porto.
Following a start as an unsuccessful pop singer, Joe Cocker found his place singing rock and soul at pubs in England with his outstanding backing group, the Grease Band. He hit number one in the UK in November 1968 with his version of the Beatles’ A Little Help from My Friends. His career took off after he sang that song at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969. A second hit came with a version of Leon Russell’s Delta Lady in the autumn of 1969 and both of his albums, With a Little Help from My Friends (April 1969) and Joe Cocker! (November 1969), went gold in America. In 1970, his cover of the Box Tops hit The Letter became his first US Top Ten hit.
Cocker’s first peak of success came with the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour of 1970, featuring Cocker and over forty others and followed-on with a third gold album and a live concert film.
Problems with alcohol (both on stage and off) turned Cocker’s once-powerful voice to a croaking rasp. He returned to the US Top Ten with the romantic ballad You Are So Beautiful in 1975 and topped the charts in a duet with Jennifer Warnes with Up Where We Belong, the theme from the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
Still alive in the 90s, as a great survivor, although with less frequency than he did in the 70s and 80s, he continued to work throughout the new millennium. No Ordinary World was his first release since 1997’s Across from Midnight. Respect Yourself was launched in 2002, and the covers album Heart & Soul followed in 2004. The European release Hymn for My Soul, which features cover versions of songs by Stevie Wonder, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and John Fogerty, was issued on Parlophone (label that is part of the EMI Group within EMI Music UK and Ireland) in 2007.
Check Joe Cocker at www.cocker.com
