It’s been in the news: Joe Cocker, who died in 2014, was inducted a few days ago into that august institution that is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One can imagine the distress of the honoree, if he were alive, if he had to face such official recognition from the industry. Cocker had no superstar ways: he liked to remember that he was simply a gasfitter from Sheffield on whom fortune had smiled. Several times.
His first triumphal takeoff was about to destroy his health and sanity. Anecdotes abound portraying a person affected to inconceivable extremes. During a dark period, when he was having trouble even paying his bills, someone visited him. That friend sat down on the couch and discovered, in the space between the seat and the back, a crumpled check worth several hundred thousand dollars. Joe hadn’t considered the need to go to the bank to collect it.
Joe Cocker was no fool. In any case, he was left dazed after his participation in one of the wildest tours in rock history, Crazy dogs and English. You know the story: forced to tour the United States, Cocker was left without a band and Leon Russell came to the rescue. Russell, a veteran of the California studios, enlisted two dozen instrumentalists and singers. The tour launched Russell to stardom. And he wasn’t the only one to benefit: saxophonist Bobby Keys began his rise to the role of Keith Richards’ accomplice in the Rolling Stones, and Rita Coolidge established the definition of hippy-chic The tour produced an interesting double LP and a documentary film which, for a few days, can be seen openly.
It’s basically a moving commune, with kids and dogs. Cocker smiles benevolently, but all the effort has left him discouraged. His subsequent career is a carousel of escapes and successes derived from coincidences such as the use of his You can leave your hat on in a certain sequence by Kim Basinger in Nine and a half weeks. John Belushi’s imitation of his spastic movements also brought him closer to a new audience. For some reason, disasters befell him in Australia, where the natives did not tolerate any extravagance on the part of visitors to the ancient metropolis. Traveling to that country, in the company of his family manager, he was stranded – don’t ask for details – on a Pacific island, with no money or passport.
He could have dedicated himself there sweetie, nothinglike the character of Crazy and English Dogs, originally a song from Well living Noël Coward who satirized the peculiarities of Englishmen in tropical climates. Elizabeth II’s subjects liked few things more than laughing at themselves, as demonstrated by Jeremy Irons’ famous interpretation of the song.
I have particular reasons to be grateful to Cocker. At the end of the 1960s, TVE broadcast a surprise performance of it, in Musical minutes which covered unexpected gaps in programming. My father was horrified by his actions and turned off the device. Of course at that moment I decided this was for me.
