Joe Cocker - up where we belong - YouRepeat Add our chrome extension to repeat YouTube videos at the click of a button Joe Cocker - up where we belong Choose your time range using the slider. Start: Use this link to share your repeat GIF Creation Settings Separate tags with commas or press enter (max 5 tags) Quick GIF Create Righteous Brothers - UNCHAINED MELODY - GHOST Joe Cocker John Robert Cocker OBE — known as Joe Cocker — is an English rock and blues singer, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic body movement in performance and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles. His cover of The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" reached number one in the UK in 1968, and he performed the song live at Woodstock in 1969. His 1975 hit single, "You Are So Beautiful", reached number five in the US. Cocker is the recipient of several awards, including a 1983 Grammy Award for his US number one "Up Where We Belong", a duet with Jennifer Warnes.

In 1993 he was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male, and in 2007 he received an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music. Cocker was ranked #97 on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest singers list. Place of birth: Sheffield Joe Cocker obituary | Music | The Guardian Pop and rock Joe Cocker obituary Sheffield-born rock star with a raucous vocal style whose 1968 version of With a Little Help from My Friends became his unofficial theme tune Joe Cocker performing in France in 1972. Photograph: Marc Simon/Apis/Sygma/Corbis Monday 22 December 2014 14.29 EST Last modified on Friday 11 November 2016 08.42 EST Share on Messenger Close In a musical career lasting more than 50 years, Joe Cocker, who has died of lung cancer aged 70, bounced between the euphoria of chart-topping success and the misery of drug and alcohol abuse. In the latter part of his life, the singer had re-established himself as a soulful interpreter of material from a broad range of songwriters.

Cocker’s background and upbringing in Sheffield , where he was born, son of Harold and Marjorie, established his credentials as a ballsy, salt-of-the-earth performer cut from stalwart working-class stock. At first it seemed as if the young Joe was destined for an unglamorous future working as a fitter for the East Midlands Gas Board. As his mother commented: “When Joe left school at 16, 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.” Cocker gained his first toehold in music with the aid of his brother, Victor. He sang with Victor’s band the Headliners at a local youth club, then later played drums in Victor’s skiffle group, the Cavaliers. By 1963, they were transformed into Vance Arnold & the Avengers.

He took the opportunity to reinvent himself as the vocalist Cowboy Joe, as the Avengers played warm-up gigs for better known names such as the Hollies. He also made guest appearances with other local artists including Dave Berry and the Cruisers. Pinterest Joe Cocker with Jennifer Warnes in 1983. Their duet Up Where We Belong for the film An Officer and a Gentleman was a smash hit. Photograph: Nick Ut/AP Cocker was already beginning to develop the intense, raucous vocal style which would make him an international name, and he was spotted by the record producer Mike Leander , who helped him to make a demo recording. This earned him a contract with Decca records in 1964, for whom he made his debut on disc with a version of the Beatles tune I’ll Cry Instead. Despite Cocker’s convincing performance, the single failed to chart and the Decca contract lapsed. After touring as an opening act for Manfred Mann and the Hollies, Cocker reverted to his gas board job, persevering with music in his free time.

He struck up a songwriting partnership with the bass player Chris Stainton and, in 1965, the pair put together the first incarnation of the Grease Band, which included the guitarists Henry McCullough and Alan Spenner. Two years of club and pub dates, mainly in northern England, earned the band a committed following. Pinterest Singer Joe Cocker dies aged 70 - video In 1968, EMI’s Regal Zonophone label released the Stainton/Cocker composition Marjorine – the performing credit read merely “Joe Cocker” – and it reached No 48 on the UK singles chart. Much more spectacular was his version of the Lennon/McCartney song With a Little Help from My Friends – Cocker’s friends on the recording session included the future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page – which topped the UK charts that November. An enthusiastic public endorsement from the Fab Four themselves did Cocker no harm at all, and the song would become his unofficial theme tune. With the British public converted to his cause, Cocker set about wooing the American market.

A string of concert dates and TV appearances climaxed with his appearance at the Woodstock festival in August 1969, where his extraordinary performance of With a Little Help from My Friends , complete with unearthly screams, hideous grimaces and apparently uncontrollable bodily gyrations, became one of the most unforgettable sequences from the ensuing movie of the event. The following year was another momentous one for Cocker. His album Joe Cocker!, produced by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell, earned critical raves and raced up the American charts. It also gave Cocker another hit, with a Beatles cover, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. Then the Grease Band split up after Cocker cancelled an American tour, but the singer was warned by the US Immigration Department that his failure to fulfil the dates could jeopardise his future ability to work in the US. Cocker duly assembled the 21-piece collective known as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and undertook a punishing 65-date campaign packed into only 57 days. It spawned a bestselling double live album and accompanying feature film, but the sprawling and chaotic project left Cocker exhausted and facing a crippling pile of bills.

Pinterest Joe Cocker performing at Woodstock on 17 August 1969 Photograph: Courtesy Everett Collection/Rex He lapsed into a long period of hard drinking and heroin addiction, and it was not until 1972 that he returned to the stage as part of the 12-piece line up known as Joe Cocker and the Chris Stainton Band. However, he was having difficulty keeping control, and was drinking so heavily that often he was barely capable of performing. That October, he was fined $1,200 in Australia following his arrest for possession of marijuana, then had to make a rapid exit from the country to avoid a list of further charges, including assault. Cocker stumbled through the rest of the 1970s as a shadow of his former self, still touring and knocking out uneven albums, including Jamaica Say You Will (1975), Stingray (1976) and Live in Los Angeles (1976).

However, he did manage to notch up a big hit in 1975 with You Are So Beautiful (which enjoyed a renaissance when it featured prominently in Brian De Palma’s 1993 film, Carlito’s Way), while a switch to Asylum Records in 1978 spurred the singer to raise his game with Luxury You Can Afford. Better still was his 1982 release on Island records, Sheffield Steel, which featured powerful performances of songs by Jimmy Webb, Bob Dylan and Steve Winwood and remains arguably the definitive Joe Cocker album. Cocker confirmed his resurgence with his duet with Jennifer Warnes on the schlocky power ballad Up Where We Belong , from the hit movie An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). The song won a Grammy and an Oscar. Subsequently, his career saw him coasting along comfortably, enjoying respect from his peers and loyalty from a broad international audience, though somewhat lacking in further artistic landmarks. In his determination to stay on the wagon, he received unstinting support from his wife Pam, whom he married in 1987.

As a diversion from the music industry, the couple joined the trend for celebs to get into the catering business by opening the Mad Dog Ranch café in Colorado. Through the 80s and 90s, Cocker released a string of albums including Unchain My Heart (1987), One Night of Sin (1989) and Night Calls (1991), all of which sold respectably if unspectacularly. More convincing was Have a Little Faith (1994), which was well received internationally and generated a couple of minor UK hit singles with Take Me Home and Let the Healing Begin. A&M seized the moment to release a four-disc box set entitled The Long Voyage Home (1995), a thorough survey of his career, which helped to remind anybody who had not been listening closely of the breadth and longevity of Cocker’s catalogue. Not that Cocker’s accomplishments had been overlooked by music industry insiders. He had become a regular guest at assorted big-ticket rockbiz shindigs such as the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala and Nelson Mandela ’s 70th Birthday Tribute, both in 1988.

In 1989 he appeared at an inauguration party for the new US president, George HW Bush. He popped up at Rock In Rio II in 1991 and at the Montreux jazz festival in 1992, and came full circle by joining the bill for Woodstock II in 1994. In 2002, he joined Phil Collins on drums and the Queen guitarist Brian May to perform With a Little Help from My Friends at the Party at the Palace concert held for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. He was appointed OBE in 2007 and played concerts in London and Sheffield to mark the event. In the same year, his 20th studio album Hymn for My Soul, a collection of songs by such greats as Stevie Wonder, Dylan, John Fogerty and the Beatles, took him back into the UK top 10. Hard Knocks (2010) topped Billboard’s independent albums chart. In March 2011 Cocker performed at a benefit concert for the R&B guitarist Cornell Dupree , who had played with him live and on record, at BB King’s Blues Club in New York, and who died a few weeks later.

During a concert at Madison Square Garden in September this year, Billy Joel paused to pay tribute to Cocker, surprising listeners by commenting that he was “not very well right now” and proposing him for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cocker will be remembered as one of the most soulful white rock singers to have emerged from Britain – the only homegrown performers comparable to him might be Free’s Paul Rodgers or Family’s Roger Chapman. Perhaps more importantly, he showed enough character to fight his way back after being written off as another casualty of 70s rock’n’roll excess. He is survived by Pam.

• Joe Cocker (John Robert Cocker), singer, born 20 May 1944; died 22 December 2014 Sheffield-born singer, who was famous for his raspy voice, dies after battle with lung cancer Published: 22 Dec 2014 In 1972, Australia’s McMahon government had the British singer arrested – and eventually deported – for marijuana possession Published: 23 Dec 2014 Sheffield-born singer, famous for hits such as Up Where We Belong and You Are So Beautiful, has died aged 70 Published: 22 Dec 2014 Musician Joe Cocker has died from lung cancer, aged 70 Published: 22 Dec 2014 Joe Cocker Biography, Joe Cocker Music, Joe Cocker News, Joe Cocker Photos and more - KeepVid Music Artist NEWS After starting out as an unsuccessful pop singer (working under the name Vance Arnold), Joe Cocker found his niche singing rock and soul in the pubs of England with his superb backing group, the Grease Band. He hit number one in the U.K.

in November 1968 with his version of the Beatles' "A Little Help from My Friends." His career really took off after he sang that song at Woodstock in August 1969. A second British hit came with a version of Leon Russell's "Delta Lady" in the fall of 1969 (by then, Russell was Cocker's musical director) 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 U.S. Top Ten. Cocker's first peak of success came when Russell organized the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour of 1970, featuring Cocker and over 40 others and resulting in a third gold album and a concert film. Subsequent efforts were less popular, and problems with alcohol (both on- and off-stage) reduced Cocker's once-powerful voice to a croaking rasp. Cocker returned to the U.S.

Top Ten in 1975, with the romantic ballad "You Are So Beautiful" and topped the charts in 1982 via a duet with Jennifer Warnes on "Up Where We Belong" (the theme from the film An Officer and a Gentleman). He still charted during the '90s, albeit with less frequency than he did in the '70s and '80s. Across from Midnight arrived in 1997, followed by No Ordinary World two years later. Respect Yourself appeared in 2002, and the covers album Heart & Soul followed in 2004. The European release Hymn for My Soul, which featured cover versions of songs by Stevie Wonder, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and John Fogerty, was issued on Parlophone in 2007. His complete Live at Woodstock performance was released in 2009. In 2010, Hard Knocks -- his first studio album in three years -- appeared in Europe. Cocker's 23rd studio album, Fire It Up, was issued in November 2012 on Sony.

It was produced by Matt Serletic, known for his work with Collective Soul, Rob Thomas, Matchbox Twenty, and numerous others. Slightly over two years later, however, on December 22, 2014, he succumbed to lung cancer. John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE (20 May 1944 22 December 2014) was an English singer and musician. He was known for his gritty voice, spasmodic body movement in performance and definitive versions of popular songs.nCocker's cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" reached number one in the UK in 1968. He performed the song live at Woodstock in 1969 and at the Party at the Palace concert for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2002. His version also became the theme song for the TV series The Wonder Years. His 1974 cover of "You Are So Beautiful" reached number five in the US.

Cocker was the recipient of several awards, including a 1983 Grammy Award for his US number one "Up Where We Belong", a duet with Jennifer Warnes.nIn 1993 Cocker was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male, in 2007 was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque in his hometown and in 2008 he received an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music. Cocker was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest singers list. Soul singer Joe Cocker dies at 70 Soul singer Joe Cocker dies at 70 Tweet Share British singer Joe Cocker speaks after receiving the trophy for Category 'lifetime achievement award music' during the 48th Golden Camera award ceremony in Berlin, February 2, 2013. REUTERS/Maurizio Gambarini/Pool More (Reuters) - Joe Cocker, the raspy-voiced, Grammy-winning singer best known for his cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "You Are So Beautiful," died on Monday, his agent said. He was 70.

The death was confirmed by Marshall Arts, the company of Cocker's agent, Barrie Marshall, in England. The rock singer, known for flailing his arms on stage during performances, lost a long battle with lung cancer, his record label, Sony Music, said in a statement. "His international success as a blues/rock singer began in 1964 and continues till this day. Joe created nearly 40 albums and toured extensively around the globe," his label added. Cocker, a native of Britain, lived in Crawford, Colorado. Musicians and fans took to Twitter to express their grief at the death of the rocker, who was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) at Buckingham Palace for his contribution to music. "Goodbye and God Bless to Joe Cocker from one of his friends peace and love. R.," tweeted former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. "We loved you forever. We will miss you always ... RIP Joe Cocker," rocker Steven Tyler tweeted. Singer Bryan Adams described Cocker are a good friend and one of the best rock singers ever. Cocker was born in Sheffield, England, into a working-class family.

He worked as a plumber while pursuing a singing career, covering Motown songs in pubs in northern England in the 1960s. He became known as a white soul singer and for his unique stage presence, twisting his body and face into contortions as he sang with his signature husky delivery. The late actor John Belushi famously parodied Cocker’s spasmodic style on late-night comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live.” Cocker and Belushi appeared together on the show, with both performing in the rocker's style.Cocker played at the legendary Woodstock music festival in 1969, where he made his name with his performance of "With a Little Help from My Friends." In the early 1970s "The Mad Dogs and Englishmen" tour and live album cemented his success. He had a big hit in 1974 with "You Are So Beautiful," co-written with Billy Preston. But he also struggled with alcohol and drug abuse.

His career revived in 1982 when he sang "Up Where We Belong" in a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the film "An Officer and A Gentleman." The song earned Cocker his only Grammy, as well as an Oscar for its writers. His many studio albums included "Fire It Up," his last, in 2012. Cocker is survived by his wife Pam, his brother Victor, a stepdaughter and two grandchildren. Along with his wife, Cocker set up the Cocker Kids' Foundation to support local youth. (Reporting by Mary Milliken, Eric Kelsey and Patricia Reaney; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) Reblog Rock and Soul man Joe Cocker dies at age 70 | SoulTracks - Soul Music Biographies, News and Reviews Soul Music Biographies, News and Reviews Rock and Soul man Joe Cocker dies at age 70 There are some voices that have been with us for so long, whose songs are such indelible parts of the fabric of our lives that we take them for granted. Can anyone remember a time when Joe Cocker’s voice wasn’t a part of the cultural milieu?

Serving as the soundtracks of movies, becoming the theme songs of TV classics, selling us some product or another, Joe Cocker just always has been, and now he’s gone. Grammy-Award winning, multiplatinum singer/songwriter Joe Cocker died of lung cancer at his home in Crawford, Colorado on December 22, 2014 at the age of 70 years old. … Named one of the “Top 100 Greatest Singers of All Time” by both Rolling Stone and the UK’s Mojo magazines, it seems his hoarse, bluesy, from the gut approach to singing has just always been too. Certainly songs like “With A Little Help From My Friends,” the theme song for the ‘80s hit TV show, The Wonder Years, and “You Are So Beautiful,” one of the purest love ballads ever recorded, have become such American standards that one couldn’t imagine what life was like without them. The rock, the blues, the soul of “Unchain My Heart” is America. The irony is Cocker was a working class Brit of humble beginnings from Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England.

A cover band man who specialized in Ray Charles, one of his idols (the other being The King of Skiffle, British pop star, Lonnie Donegan), Cocker tried his hands as the frontman for a number of bands, including the Cavaliers, Vance Arnold and the Avengers, Joe Cocker’s Big Blues, before finally settling in with the band with whom he’d record his first minor hit, “Marjorine,” The Grease Band. He entered the American consciousness as a solo artist after cutting a couple of Beatles tunes, one for Decca in 1964, “I’ll Cry Instead” under the name Vance Arnold. It flopped. The other came four years later with a rearrangement of the Beatles “With A Little Help From My Friends" featuring Jimmy Page on lead guitar, BJ Wilson on drums, Tommy Eyre on organ, and Sue and Sunny on backing vocals. It was a Top 10 UK hit for 13 weeks, hitting #1 before its rise was done. Interestingly enough, it only reached #68 on the US charts its first time around. The gold-selling album of the same name fared a bit better, reaching #35 in the U.S.

Cocker followed a seminal Woodstock performance with more impacting Beatles’ covers of “Something” and “She Came In Through The Window” and earned another US hit-charting album (US #11) and another UK hit single with Leon Russell’s “Delta Lady.” The Grease Band dissolved shortly thereafter. The Mad Dogs and Englishmen, lead by Leon Russell, served as Cocker’s touring band for the next few years and helped shape the more blues based sound that would become his signature. Wildly animated, sometimes uneven performances aided by heavy drinking and bouts of depression did little to stymie the tide of hits from albums like Time and Life and the live album and film Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Cocker’s first U.S. Top 10; Cocker still managed to deliver such classics as “Feelin’ Alright” (most recently used in Denzel Washington’s hit film Flight) and the Top 25 hit “High Time We Went,” from A&M Records album, Joe Cocker, in 1972.

A major media kerfuffle over a 1972 arrest on marijuana possession charges in Melbourne, Australia only added to his legend, earning him the name “Mad Dog” among supporters, and served as an early precursor to the marijuana legalization movement in that country. Unfortunately, marijuana was not the extent of Cocker’s drug use, and he’d gain a reputation for his decades long struggle with drugs and alcohol abuse, in addition to suffering from chronic depression, issues which would eventually come to affect his live performances and bookings. Still, far from done at his height in 1974, Cocker delivered a #11 US charter with the album I Can Stand A Little Rain and it’s iconic #5 hit, a cover of a Dennis Wilson and Billy Preston tune entitled “You Are So Beautiful.” It would prove a high water mark that wouldn’t be seen again for nearly a decade, as his next four albums tanked, many more reggae-infused than his trademark sound: Jamaica Say You Will, Stingray, Live in L.A., Space Captain—Joe Cocker Live In Concert, and Luxury You Can Afford.

It would take a 1982 soundtrack to catapult Cocker back to the top for a little Oscar Award-winning film called, An Officer and a Gentleman. Produced by Stewart Levine and recorded with Jennifer Warnes, the #1 international smash “Up Where We Belong” would go on to win both the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song placed Cocker back on top with more songs appearing on soundtracks, like “You Can Leave Your Hat On” in the 1986 blockbuster 9½ Weeks, and major selling, more full-bodied production albums, including: Unchain My Heart, One Night of Sin, Cocker, Civilized Man and Sheffield Steel. One of two songs recorded in 1982 with the jazz funk band, The Crusaders, “I’m So Glad I’m Standing Here Today,” would also go on to be nominated for a Grammy Award. One of the most licensed musicians around, Cocker’s 1987 cover of Bobby Sharp’s (credited to Teddy Powell) “Unchain My Heart” would be immortalized in a Miller Lite commercial for their Dalmatian campaign.

Not one to rest on his laurels, like clockwork Cocker continued to release an album every two to three years from 1992’s Night Calls to 2012’s Fire It Up, even slipped in one last Top 40 UK hit with 1992’s “Feels Like Forever,” and still maintained a fairly impressive global touring schedule during his veteran years. Cocker was also seen at a number of tributes and commemorative events including the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II and the inauguration concert of George H.W. Bush. He also appeared in The Beatles tribute film, Across the Universe as the lead singer of “Come Together.” Other awards including an OBE and a nomination for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have followed. Cocker is survived by his wife of 27 years, Pam Baker. He will be missed. By L. Michael Gipson Joe Cocker - Site sur le chanteur anglais : actualités, discographie, photos et vidéos...

Sheffield Steel The History Of Rock (1983) - Réalisé par Gary Herman Cette voix immense qui ressurgit épisodiquement du fin fond de l'oubli : celle de Joe Cocker, une fois encore ressuscité après tant de petites morts. Joe Cocker : casualty or chart survivor ? Despite the fact Joe Cooker had to wait until 1968, when he was 24 years of age, before achieving his first major hit, the singer is rightly considered part of the early Sixties British R&B movement. The relative lateness of Cocker’s appearance in the charts may be attributed to his unsteady temperament, which has revealed itself throughout his career in excessive drinking, periodic lay-offs and frequent comebacks and a general aura of neurotic instability. On stage, Cocker’s arms fail about, his voice is hoarse and ragged and his whole stance suggests palsy or, more accurately, a man trapped between the desperate need to express himself and the recognition of his inability to do so. Disillusion and depression have plagued Cocker’s career as he swings between a genuine commitment to rock’s expressive power and a persistent desire to exploit its commercial potential.

Jerking and twitching like a puppet, Joe Cocker’s shambolic stage presence (above and opposite) belied his terrific vocal energy and fair. After splitting from the Grease Band (inset opposite), his groups generally included a horn section (below). It was commerciality which informed the choice of Cocker’s 1968 hit - a cover of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper track, ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ - for Cocker had been performing since the Fifties and had made his first, unsuccessful, record (as Vance Arnold backed by the Avengers) in 1963. Ironically, this debut disc was a cover of an earlier Beatles’ song, ‘I'll Cry Instead’, while the B-side was ‘Georgia On My Mind’. It was Ray Charles who had turned this Stuart Gorrell-Hoagy Carmichael standard into a US chart-topper in 1960, and it was Charles who most accurately represented Cocker’s musical aspirations. Joe Cocker was born in England’s steel town, Sheffield, on 20 May 1944.

Like many other provincial centres in the late Fifties and early Sixties, Sheffield saw the rise of a musical underground based on an appreciation of black American styles. Cooker entered this underground through skiffle - a route he shared with many others, including the embryonic Beatles. ‘When we were kids, we were constantly bored" Cocker once recalled. "Then skiffle came along, Lonnie Donegan and that stuff. So when I was about 13 I bought a cheap drum kit and began messing about with some kids who’d bought guitars." By the time his schooling ended at the age of 16, Cocker had moved on to rock’n’roll and blues - working as a gas-fitter by day and playing, by night. "I was especially attracted to the blues,’ he said, ‘which seemed to have great honesty compared to all the bullshit English pop amounted to then." Feeling bluesy Ray Charles was the major influence on Cocker’s singing style, his inspiration lying in his ability to blend blues feeling with unashamedly commercial songs. By 1963, Cocker had given up his regular job and won a recording contract for Vance Arnold and the Avengers.

The group toured with the Rolling Stones and the Hollies, but there was little or no interest in them and, after ‘I’ll Cry Instead’, the option on their contract was dropped. The group played American air bases for a while and Cocker recalled how they ‘went down sensationally with the blacks, and the white guys didn’t want to know us’. For the first but not the last time, Cocker’s career went into a sharp decline. He was broke, worked as a casual labourer and spent most of his money drinking. By 1967, however, the rock scene had moved on. Black music had become established ; blues feeling - transmuted by hallucinogenic drugs - underpinned much of the work of new bands then emerging and the record buying public were more open to a wider range of styles and approaches than ever before. Cocker and a pianist friend from Sheffeld, Chris Stainton, worked on some new material - including a Stainton composition called ‘Marjorine’. A demo attracted the interest of producer Denny Cordell, who had worked with the Moody Blues’, the Move, Georgie Fame and Procol Harum.

‘Marjorine’ was released as a single and entered the British Top Fifty in May 1968. The wave of interest in Cocker’s powerful style was helped along by his stage performances (with Joe Cocker’s Big Blues Band). He sang like a demented string-puppet, eyes half-closed, limbs jerking while his vocal performance possessed an energy completely at variance with his slovenly appearance. With the success of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, which went to Number 1 in November 1968, Cocker’s future seemed assured - anyone who could trans - form the jolly Ringo Starr-sung number from Sgt Pepper into a song of anguish and triumph had to have something. Under Denny Cordell’s guidance, Cocker now recorded his first album, "With A Little Help From My Friends" (1969) - the friends in this case being a host of sidemen including Jimmy Page, Albert Lee, Steve Winwood and Spooky Tooth drummer Mike Kellie. Following the LP’s release, a group, named the Grease Band, was formed to back Cocker on stage.

The band comprised Chris Stainton, Alan Spenner (bass), Bruce Rowland (drums) and Henry McCullough (guitar) and in the early summer of 1969 Cocker and band left for America, where they played at Woodstock. Grease in the delta It was in Los Angeles that Cocker made the acquaintance of session musician-cum-producer Leon Russell, who had played on the records of such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Byrds. It was with a Russell song, ‘Delta Lady’, that Cocker had his third hit - the record reached Number 10 in Britain in October - while Russell also helped to supervise the recording of a second album. Recorded in LA, Joe Cocker boasted the talents of such musicians as Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Clarence White of the Byrds and their playing gave the album a lighter, countryish feel to the rougher, bluesy soul sound of its predecessor.

This disparity in styles highlighted Cocker’s major problem : relying solely on his feeling, energy and interpretative originality, he was far too susceptible to the control of arrangers, producers and those better able to formulate a musical policy than himself. Joe Cocker’s talent was always an eccentric one and seemed unable to define and control itself. In 1970, the Grease Band - overlooked in all the high-powered session-work - left Cocker on the eve of another American tour to strike out on their own. Russell immediately stepped in and organised a group of 42 men, women and children, including the Delaney and Bonnie Band, Rita Coolidge, Cocker and Russell himself, to play the dates. The tour was billed as ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ and was a huge success. A live double album of the same title was released in 1970 and a film in 1971.

Cocker, ostensibly the star, emerged - so he has said - with 2000 dollars and a drug habit at the end of it, while Russell emerged as the actual star, continuing to tour with a smaller group of ‘Mad Dog’ survivors and rake in the money long after Cocker had run back to Sheffeld. Joe Cocker might have been the offcial star of the show (above), but out in the midday sun (right) of the 'Mad Dogs And Englishmen’ tour, he found himself eclipsed by Leon R ussell (below). In 1982, however, his duet with Jennifer Warnes finally put them 'Up Where We Belong’ - at the top of the US charts. Cocker down under The singer spent the next 18 months in virtual retirement before making a come-back in 1972 with a tour which opened in America and closed, disastrously, in Australia. In October 1972, the Australian courts convicted Cocker and six members of the tour party on drugs charges.

They were ordered out of the country, but before they left Cocker appeared at one final show so drunk that he fell over, and later managed to get himself evicted from his Melbourne hotel after a brawl. Throughout the Seventies, Cocker’s career continued to be erratic. A cover version of the Box Tops hit ‘The Letter’ had been his final UK chart entry in 1970, though he reached Number 5 in America with ‘You Are So Beautiful’ in 1975. During the decade, the singer made repeated attempts to take to live performance again, but failed signally to approach the heights of his achievements of 1968 and 1969 and although he released several albums on a variety of labels, all were marked by lack of decision and direction, uncertainty in choice of material and a shifting mass of session players. Though Cocker’s voice remained, on occasion, as soulful and expressive as ever, the arrangements, the musicians’ performances and many of the songs themselves did it little justice.

By the Eighties, critics, and the majority of the public too, had written Cocker off as a wasted talent - one couldn’t help but feel that the image of a puppet or a Frankenstein monster which seemed once to counterpoint his all-too-human vocals had become ironically appropriate. But then, in November 1982, such theories were confounded when the aptly-titled ‘Up Where We Belong’ - on which Cocker duetted with Jennifer Warnes, a past collaborator with Warren Zevon and Leonard Cohen - rose to the top of the US charts. It seemed that, at last, Joe Cocker might have shrugged off his personal problems to come up trumps once again. © Joe Cocker & Lucie Lebens - Tous droits réservés Backwards Bullets: This Week In Charts 1982 | Billboard Backwards Bullets: This Week In Charts 1982 Tony Mahoney Men at Work 'WHO' WAS NO. 1?: This week in 1982, Australia's Men at Work , fronted by singer/songwriter Colin Hay , topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their first U.S.

single, "Who Can It Be Now?" In the print issue of Billboard dated Oct. 30, 1982, Chart Beat noted that the song was the first debut single by an act on Columbia Records to reach the summit since the Byrds ' "Mr. Tambourine Man" in 1965. "Who Can It Be Now?" spurred another inquiry in Chart Beat: how many Hot 100 No. 1s had contained questions in their titles? Men at Work's song was the 12th.

Here is a look at the Hot 100 titles to pose questions in the last 27 years (22 such songs have now reigned, dating to the first, Frankie Avalon 's "Why," in 1959): "Who Can It Be Now?," Men at Work, 1982 "How Will I Know," Whitney Houston, 1986 "Who's That Girl," Madonna, 1987 "Didn't We Almost Have It All," Whitney Houston, 1987 "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," Whitney Houston, 1988 "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," Michael Bolton, 1990 "How Do You Talk to an Angel," the Heights, 1992 "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?," Bryan Adams, 1995 "How Do U Want It," 2Pac featuring K-Ci & JoJo, 1996 "Have You Ever?," Brandy, 1999 "Do I Make You Proud," Taylor Hicks, 2006 Men at Work, winners of the 1982 Best New Artist Grammy Award, followed "Who

 Can It Be Now?" with their second No.

1 on the Hot 100, "Down Under." The group's debut album, "Business as Usual," locked down the top spot on the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks. The act split in 1986 but has since reunited for occasional performances. Hay released his newest solo album, "American Sunshine," in August. On his official web site , he sums up his varied storied career, which also includes an impressive acting resume. "Success becomes a point where everything you work on converges. I equate it to a boxer in a match. It's very difficult to knock someone out with one punch - it's usually a series of combinations over fifteen rounds that wins the fight." 'GIRL' POWER: While this week sports the landmark release of Michael Jackson 's concert film and album, "This Is It," the latter of which can be streamed free on billboard.com , a Billboard Single Review 27 years ago this week only hinted at the phenomenon that "Thriller" would become.

Read the review of "The Girl Is Mine," "the first single from (Jackson's) forthcoming album teams the wunderkind with Paul McCartney in a breezy, lighthearted love song capped by some playful banter at the tag." Billboard correctly predicted a "fast break" for the song. "The Girl Is Mine" debuted at No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 the following week and peaked at No. 2 for three weeks in January 1983. UP WHERE THEY BELONGED: While Men at Work commanded the Billboard Hot 100 this week in 1982, several songs that would go on to become well-loved, evergreen hits debuted. Don Henley bowed at No. 73 with "Dirty Laundry," which stands as his highest-peaking solo smash (No. 3). Toto 's future No. 1 "Africa" arrived at No. 75, and two modern pop/R&B classics followed: Marvin Gaye 's "Sexual Healing" (No. 78) and Prince 's "1999" (No. 81).

Here are the top 10 titles on the Hot 100 this week 27 years ago: No. 1, "Who Can It Be Now?," Men at Work No. 2, "Jack and Diane," John Cougar No. 3, "Eye in the Sky," The Alan Parsons Project No. 4, "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)," Michael McDonald No. 5, "Up Where We Belong," Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes No. 6, "Heart Attack," Olivia Newton-John No. 7, "Somebody's Baby," Jackson Browne No. 8, "You Can Do Magic," America No. 9, "I Ran," A Flock of Seagulls No.

10, "Heartlight," Neil Diamond Joe Cocker RIP - Cambodia Expats Online Cambodia Expats Online It is currently Fri Jan 20, 2017 8:57 am All times are UTC+07:00 Post by Pizzalover » Tue Dec 23, 2014 2:13 pm Joe Cocker obituary Sheffield-born rock star with a raucous vocal style whose 1968 version of With a Little Help from My Friends became his unofficial theme tune Adam Sweeting Monday 22 December 2014 19.29 GMT In a musical career lasting more than 50 years, Joe Cocker, who has died of lung cancer aged 70, bounced between the euphoria of chart-topping success and the misery of drug and alcohol abuse. In the latter part of his life, the singer had re-established himself as a soulful interpreter of material from a broad range of songwriters. Cocker’s background and upbringing in Sheffield, where he was born, son of Harold and Marjorie, established his credentials as a ballsy, salt-of-the-earth performer cut from stalwart working-class stock.

At first it seemed as if the young Joe was destined for an unglamorous future working as a fitter for the East Midlands Gas Board. As his mother commented: “When Joe left school at 16, 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.” Cocker gained his first toehold in music with the aid of his brother, Victor. He sang with Victor’s band the Headliners at a local youth club, then later played drums in Victor’s skiffle group, the Cavaliers. By 1963, they were transformed into Vance Arnold & the Avengers. He took the opportunity to reinvent himself as the vocalist Cowboy Joe, as the Avengers played warm-up gigs for better known names such as the Hollies. He also made guest appearances with other local artists including Dave Berry and the Cruisers. Joe Cocker with Jennifer Warnes in 1983.

Their duet Up Where We Belong for the film An Officer and a Gentleman was a smash hit Cocker was already beginning to develop the intense, raucous vocal style which would make him an international name, and he was spotted by the record producer Mike Leander, who helped him to make a demo recording. This earned him a contract with Decca records in 1964, for whom he made his debut on disc with a version of the Beatles tune I’ll Cry Instead. Despite Cocker’s convincing performance, the single failed to chart and the Decca contract lapsed. After touring as an opening act for Manfred Mann and the Hollies, Cocker reverted to his gas board job, persevering with music in his free time. He struck up a songwriting partnership with the bass player Chris Stainton and, in 1965, the pair put together the first incarnation of the Grease Band, which included the guitarists Henry McCullough and Alan Spenner. Two years of club and pub dates, mainly in northern England, earned the band a committed following.

In 1968, EMI’s Regal Zonophone label released the Stainton/Cocker composition Marjorine – the performing credit read merely “Joe Cocker” – and it reached No 48 on the UK singles chart. Much more spectacular was his version of the Lennon/McCartney song With a Little Help from My Friends – Cocker’s friends on the recording session included the future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page – which topped the UK charts that November. An enthusiastic public endorsement from the Fab Four themselves did Cocker no harm at all, and the song would become his unofficial theme tune. With the British public converted to his cause, Cocker set about wooing the American market. A string of concert dates and TV appearances climaxed with his appearance at the Woodstock festival in August 1969, where his extraordinary performance of With a Little Help from My Friends, complete with unearthly screams, hideous grimaces and apparently uncontrollable bodily gyrations, became one of the most unforgettable sequences from the ensuing movie of the event. The following year was another momentous one for Cocker.

His album Joe Cocker!, produced by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell, earned critical raves and raced up the American charts. It also gave Cocker another hit, with a Beatles cover, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. Then the Grease Band split up after Cocker cancelled an American tour, but the singer was warned by the US Immigration Department that his failure to fulfil the dates could jeopardise his future ability to work in the US. Cocker duly assembled the 21-piece collective known as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and undertook a punishing 65-date campaign packed into only 57 days. It spawned a bestselling double live album and accompanying feature film, but the sprawling and chaotic project left Cocker exhausted and facing a crippling pile of bills. He lapsed into a long period of hard drinking and heroin addiction, and it was not until 1972 that he returned to the stage as part of the 12-piece line up known as Joe Cocker and the Chris Stainton Band. However, he was having difficulty keeping control, and was drinking so heavily that often he was barely capable of performing.

That October, he was fined $1,200 in Australia following his arrest for possession of marijuana, then had to make a rapid exit from the country to avoid a list of further charges, including assault. Cocker stumbled through the rest of the 1970s as a shadow of his former self, still touring and knocking out uneven albums, including Jamaica Say You Will (1975), Stingray (1976) and Live in Los Angeles (1976). However, he did manage to notch up a big hit in 1975 with You Are So Beautiful (which enjoyed a renaissance when it featured prominently in Brian De Palma’s 1993 film, Carlito’s Way), while a switch to Asylum Records in 1978 spurred the singer to raise his game with Luxury You Can Afford. Better still was his 1982 release on Island records, Sheffield Steel, which featured powerful performances of songs by Jimmy Webb, Bob Dylan and Steve Winwood and remains arguably the definitive Joe Cocker album.

Cocker confirmed his resurgence with his duet with Jennifer Warnes on the schlocky power ballad Up Where We Belong, from the hit movie An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). The song won a Grammy and an Oscar. Subsequently, his career saw him coasting along comfortably, enjoying respect from his peers and loyalty from a broad international audience, though somewhat lacking in further artistic landmarks. In his determination to stay on the wagon, he received unstinting support from his wife Pam, whom he married in 1987. As a diversion from the music industry, the couple joined the trend for celebs to get into the catering business by opening the Mad Dog Ranch café in Colorado. Through the 80s and 90s, Cocker released a string of albums including Unchain My Heart (1987), One Night of Sin (1989) and Night Calls (1991), all of which sold respectably if unspectacularly. More convincing was Have a Little Faith (1994), which was well received internationally and generated a couple of minor UK hit singles with Take Me Home and Let the Healing Begin.

A&M seized the moment to release a four-disc box set entitled The Long Voyage Home (1995), a thorough survey of his career, which helped to remind anybody who had not been listening closely of the breadth and longevity of Cocker’s catalogue. Not that Cocker’s accomplishments had been overlooked by music industry insiders. He had become a regular guest at assorted big-ticket rockbiz shindigs such as the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala and Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Tribute, both in 1988. In 1989 he appeared at an inauguration party for the new US president, George HW Bush. He popped up at Rock In Rio II in 1991 and at the Montreux jazz festival in 1992, and came full circle by joining the bill for Woodstock II in 1994. In 2002, he joined Phil Collins on drums and the Queen guitarist Brian May to perform With a Little Help from My Friends at the Party at the Palace concert held for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. He was appointed OBE in 2007 and played concerts in London and Sheffield to mark the event.

In the same year, his 20th studio album Hymn for My Soul, a collection of songs by such greats as Stevie Wonder, Dylan, John Fogerty and the Beatles, took him back into the UK top 10. Hard Knocks (2010) topped Billboard’s independent albums chart. In March 2011 Cocker performed at a benefit concert for the R&B guitarist Cornell Dupree, who had played with him live and on record, at BB King’s Blues Club in New York, and who died a few weeks later. During a concert at Madison Square Garden in September this year, Billy Joel paused to pay tribute to Cocker, surprising listeners by commenting that he was “not very well right now” and proposing him for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cocker will be remembered as one of the most soulful white rock singers to have emerged from Britain – the only homegrown performers comparable to him might be Free’s Paul Rodgers or Family’s Roger Chapman. Perhaps more importantly, he showed enough character to fight his way back after being written off as another casualty of 70s rock’n’roll excess. He is survived by Pam.

• Joe Cocker (John Robert Cocker), singer, born 20 May 1944; died 22 December 2014

Question: Which singer duetted with Joe Cocker on their 1982 smash hit record ' Up Where We Belong ' ?
Answer: JENNIFER WARNES