First there’s the organ and drums, followed by the gut-busting notes from the electric guitar, then everything slows down and you hear the raspy words, “What would you do if I sang out of tune.” So begins Joe Cocker’s epic cover of the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends.” This track always makes me think of the ‘60s, specifically the flower-power era that everyone has spent the last five decades trying to relive or completely forget.
The reason for this strong association is, of course, because the track was used as the theme song for the nostalgic T.V. show The Wonder Years, set in that tumultuous time. But it also conjures images in my head of a very sweaty Cocker belting out the song at the Woodstock Festival.
I was surprised to learn that Cocker is not a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I found out by accident while fact checking a blurb about the tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. I noted how multiple artists on the record were inductees. When I did my initial count I automatically included Cocker in my tally. When I rechecked everybody’s name against the official site, I discovered Cocker was not listed. Even now, as I write this, I find myself rechecking multiple times just to make sure he’s still not there.
It was a surprise on multiple levels. For one, Joe Cocker is a white British guy who spent his entire career emulating the sound of black American artists. That’s the essence of what rock n’ roll and the Hall itself are all about, for better or for worse.
But it’s his body of work that deems him worthy of inclusion. He’s a multi-platinum artist who scored hit songs and albums across multiple decades from the ‘60s through the ‘90s. Tracks such as “Feelin’ Alright,” “The Letter,” and his Beatles covers “With A Little Help From My Friends” and “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window,” are staples of classic rock radio. Then there’s his ballads “You Are So Beautiful” and “Up Where We Belong,” which both received extensive airplay on adult contemporary format radio.
It’s possible that time has simply moved on. These days the Hall is focusing on second and third generation artists. One of this year’s inductees, the Foo Fighters, formed in 1994, thirty years after Cocker released his first single.
Since Cocker died in 2014 he could not lobby for himself or offer to appear at the induction concert. If the Hall won’t consider him on his merits, then a very strong argument can be made for including him in the early influencer category. Rock Hall inductees Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre famously sampled Cocker’s “Woman to Woman” for their smash hit “California Love.” With friends like those, he at least deserves another look.
The Social Security website shows that naming your child Joe is in decline. Over the last 20 years, it has moved from 315th most popular to 705th. Liam, Noah and Oliver are in the first 3 for 2019. That said, there are a number of musicians named Joe - some by birth, some taken later.
Because ... the theme is Joe, these gentlemen qualify. (I don't know of any girls named Joe, but there are a few named Jo.) And ... Billie Jo Spears and Jo Stafford kinda fit the theme-related bill.
A couple of random Joes here ... no sequence, no relation except that they are all Joe. And there's many more Joes I didn't list, but ...hey ... my list.
Richard Hawley has a dark golden voice, built for solitude, a deep beacon of emotions dug deep from experience. A voice not always made for the cutting edge of modernity, his flair for melody, and for holding the tune perfectly around that melody, harking back to simpler times, at times more reminiscent of the early 1960's, behind the wave of rock'n'roll and ahead of beatlemania. A time where the Bobby's Darin and Vee could hold sway, songs of lovelorn romantics and bashful innocents filling the radio waves.
I Sleep Alone/Cole's Corner (2005)
Sheffield is a city that has always held a rich musical heritage hitting well above it's weight: Joe Cocker, the Human League and Pulp all come/came from there, Hawley one of the group of musicians linked with the latter band, at one time a tour member on guitar, at the behest of old friend Jarvis Cocker. But he had been beavering away long before then, as a member of onetime tipped for the top britpoppers, Longpigs. Combining a career as a band member with his solo work, he had already put out a couple of individual records before Longpigs broke up, each well received if breaking few waves. As the son of local legend, Dave Hawley, huge on the local pub circuit, he looked destined, like his dad, to be only world famous in Sheffield.
Lonely Night/Late Night Final (2001)
But it was when he moved to Mute records that things started to take off. Cole's Corner, issued in 2005, began a momentum, reaching the album chart top 40, hitting a chord with many critics. I Sleep Alone, the featured track for this pice, comes from this recording and is typical thereof. I remember being initially a little wrong-stepped by it, so redolent was it of that era so usually reviled for being of little value. Indeed, it took me back to revisiting some of the songs of the early 60s, the time my parents first invested in a record player, and the pile of singles that came with it and that I still have. But any lingering doubts were totally dispelled by the next one, Lady's Bridge, which took the template to another level, going gold in the process. Together with another "alone" track.
Lady Solitude/Lady's Bridge (2007)
This could have become both cloying and cliche were it all he had to offer. Truelove's Gutter risked that, albeit with a degree of archness to the arrangements, offering some sourness to the earlier sweet. And then, with Standing at the Sky's Edge, a complete volte face, embracing the full force of squalling guitars, a heavy psychedelia. The critics largely went with him for this journey, but naysayers, however complimentary, wondered quite why. (Struggling to find an "alone" track to demonstrate, I am having to invoke the old why did the skeleton go to the party alone story........)
Leave Your Body Behind/Standing at the Sky's Edge (2012)
Perhaps a little cornered as to know quite now how to proceed, his next album Hollow Meadows was a bit of a stop gap, Hawley hindered by health issues, and was little more than ungarnished demos. Thankfully, his latest, last years Further, was both a return to form and to consistency. The vocals were again the rich warming broth, the backing now evoking, slightly, a hint of the Wall of Sound production values of Phil Spector. And of course there is an "alone" track.
Alone/Further (2019)
Are you ever really alone with a Richard Hawley record?
When I was 10, in the summer of 1971, my parents sent me to sleep away camp for the first time, and it was not a good experience. It was not a good camp (although based on some stuff I saw on Facebook, it might have been at one time), and I was homesick. But it wasn’t only me—it was common for campers to try to sneak out of camp, despite the fact that there was really nothing within walking distance (and I know, because we tried…but that’s another story that includes being locked in a hot van with nothing but Rice Krispies….). Also, the water tasted of sulfur. Other than that, it wasn’t too bad.
My complaints about that summer resonated with my parents, who then spent more time researching summer camps, before choosing to send me and my sister to Timber Lake Camp, which was an excellent camp that no one tried to escape, and had delicious drinking water. I absolutely loved my two summers there (and my couple of weeks as a counselor, years later, right before I went to college). Our experience at TLC led to a big influx of campers from my extended family and hometown over the years, and my sister and brother are still in touch with friends that they made there. (A few years after I stopped going, the camp was purchased by Jay Jacobs, now the NY State Democratic Chairman, and made even fancier and better than when I was there, and it was pretty good back then).
As I have previously mentioned, my first experience with radio, which in many ways was an onramp to my love of radio and music and without which I probably would not be a music blogger, was at WTLC, the camp radio station. But this isn’t about that.
I think that most camps wake up their campers with some sort of “Reveille,” because there is something vaguely military about people sleeping in bunks. But at Timber Lake, in the summer of 1972, the counselors were, for the most part, young men and women in their late teens and early twenties, and during that era, in that place, I have to assume that the military wasn’t particularly popular. Instead, we were usually awakened by some loud rock music playing on the loudspeaker.
And if you asked me what songs they played, the only one that I remember was Billy Preston’s “Outa-Space,” a funky, spacy instrumental. It made waking up relatively fun, and I’m pretty sure that I played the song on the radio, learning that it was by Billy Preston, about whom I basically knew nothing.
What I know now, is that “Outa-Space” was a big success for Preston, despite the fact that his record company refused his request to release it as a single—instead, it was a b-side that DJ’s flipped. It sold more than a million copies and hit number one on the Billboard R&B chart and number two on the Billboard Hot 100 during that summer, and won a Grammy. And I also learned that its distinctive sound came from Preston experimenting with a clavinet run through a wah wah pedal.
Preston, a self-taught child prodigy, backed Mahalia Jackson when he was 10, joined Little Richard’s band in his teens, and while with Richard in Hamburg, met The Beatles, with whom he played a few years later, and who signed him to their Apple label. He is one of the candidates for the mythical “Fifth Beatle” title, but it wasn’t until he left Apple, and joined A&M Records, that he had solo success. His first release for that label, I Wrote A Simple Song, included “Outa-Space.” Over the next two years, Preston followed up a bunch of hit singles, "Will It Go Round in Circles,” "Nothing from Nothing", and the also theme appropriate "Space Race."
In addition to playing with The Beatles, Preston opened for and played with The Rolling Stones, wrote “You Are So Beautiful” for Joe Cocker, was the first musical guest on what was then called NBC's Saturday Night, did session work with Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, and Patti Labelle, and toured with Eric Clapton and The Band. However, cocaine addiction and a sexual assault charge derailed his career in the early ‘90s, before he made a handful of live and recorded guest appearances in the 2000s. Preston died in 2006.
One of the great things about writing for this blog is that it often forces you to revisit music that you haven’t really paid attention to for years, and I have to say that “Outa-Space” sounds just as good today as it did to my 11 year old self back in 1972.
This was still a shock, when, just before Christmas, the news of Joe's passing crept into the newsfeeds. Despite the well acknowledged punishments he had put himself through, he seemed always the eternal trouper, plugging away in the background, touring occasionally, with regular recording to remind of the ragged beauty of his voice, ageing but unmistakeable. Once this man was a colossus, known to all, courtesy of three days of love and peace in upperstate New York, late 60s. Featuring in most lists of best male vocalists, whether in Rolling Stone (a lowly 97/100) or elsewhere, in my list he was up there where he belonged (sic). His critics made great play of his loss of range in latter years, but I believe most singers in his idiom would be more than satisfied by even only the slightest morsels from his larynx. I was a fan and I miss you, Joe.
Born in Steeltown, UK, Sheffield that is, at the tail end of the war, he had, unsurprisingly, had the influence of Ray Charles etched upon his teenage years, as well as of Lonnie Donegan, skiffle-meister supreme. Singing from the age of 12, he started his semi-pro career as Vance Arnold in the south Yorkshire pubs around his hometown, supporting the Rolling Stones as early as 1963, from which came his first recording contract. Dropped after a year or so, he grafted away, with a few name changes ahead of meeting up with fellow sheffield muso, Chris Stainton, to form the Grease band. For someone so well known as an interpreter of songs, his first success, albeit minor, was with his co-write, with Stainton, Marjorine , reaching 48 in the UK charts. But his Midas moment appeared shortly thereafter, electing to cover the Ringo singalong, "With a Little Help from my Friends", transforming this arguably throw-away song into a massive soul anthem. And that was Paul McCartney's opinion rather than mine. Most people would now steam straight into theWoodstcock footage, which undeniably brought him to worldwide attention, through the film, but I recently read that the field recording on the day was apparently dodgy, and that Joe had later crept into a studio and overdubbed his entire vocal, synching every moment perfectly. (On a contrary note, there is a Live at Woodstock recording that begs to differ.........) So what, maybe, but here is my Joe, and it is back to Top of the Pops, the universal portal to pop that graced the BBC for so many years. This is one where even my mother's withering words and my father's disbelief couldn't destroy my joy:
One point consistently undermentioned in most recent eulogies has been the sheer quality and class of the musicians he surrounded himself with in his early years. A glance of my copy of his first LP reveals names such as Jimmy Page, Albert Lee, Steve Winwood, B.J. Wilson, Merry Clayton, all these alongside the exemplary Greaseband. (This record, however, has possibly the worst cover picture of possibly any in my collection, and is the visage at the head of this piece.)
As the 70s opened and my mid teens beckoned, Joe could do no wrong, his Tourette inspired flailing arms and contortions denoting the template of my then dancing style. As he moved into the rock'n'roll circus of Mad Dogs and Englishman, my fantasies of life on the road became further fuelled by tales of excesses, usually holding the image of a bra-less Rita Coolidge well to the fore. Still the sidesmen and the material was exemplary, as was his voice, though perhaps the seeds of its demise were hereby being sown, alcohol getting a hold on his well-being and depression a hold on his mind. He effectively retired for two years, before returning to the live arena in 1972, the subsequent few years marred by a dalliance with heroin and further descent into alcoholism, with the full rack of onstage drunkenness, vomiting and all. To any eye he seemed close to burn and his sales were reflecting this.
In 1976 the unexpected arose and despite major debts, he became signed to a new manager, producer Michael Lang, on the condition he remained sober, getting shakily back into his stride, garnishing a Grammy nomination along the way for his work with the Crusaders. I should also mention he also gave due credit to his wife for the turnaround in lifestyle and fortune. His next stroke of luck was his involvement with Jennifer Warnes for the film soundtrack of "An Officer and a Gentleman". Most of his existing fans may disagree, let alone those of his duet partner, but this ghastly epitome of schlock, I forget it's name (ha!), was massive and catapulted him back into the recognition both of a public who had forgotten him, or had never heard of him in the first place. This time he got the Grammy. This allowed him the recognition and the kudos to keep touring and to put out regular recordings, all bolstered by a canny intuition to continue to ally himself with film soundtracks. It's true he never managed as memorable recordings as within his early years, but the choice of material always remained top-notch, mostly with an ear to the songs and the songwriters who count, making the credits always worth a good read, sometimes pointing towards their originators as much as this consummate interpreter.
And yes, it is still dear old Chris Stainton playing in that last clip!
What to buy? Hell, I don't know. There are a stash of Greatest Hits collections that might suit some. Personally it would be always be this , sorry only that the full majesty of the picture really needs gatefold vinyl
This explanation will read more like Six Degrees of Separation than a normal musical post. Let's see if I can get us through the maze.
Leon Russell began his career as a 60's session musician and songwriter. Sometime around 1969, he was an integral member of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, a transient group made up of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett plus or minus George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Dave Mason, Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Keltner, Rita Coolidge, and a boatload of other musicians. Together Russell and Bonnie wrote "Superstar," an unnoticed B-side single for Delaney and Bonnie in 1969.
In early 1970, Russell went on to produce Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, and he's featured soloing on several tunes on the very successful live album. As was Rita Coolidge, who does a bust-up job on "Superstar". Even so, you are probably most familiar with The Carpenters' 1971 version. Richard Carpenter, though, had heard neither Bonnie's or Rita's version, but instead caught it on a TV show performance by a then-new vocalist, Bette Midler.
Meanwhile, in this fertile period of cross-collaboration, Leon Russell also wrote a song about the aforementioned Coolidge, at the time nicknamed "Delta Lady". Cocker picked up that song and made it a hit in 1969. Leon recorded his own version a year later.
Let's call this post "Four Decades of Soft-Core Sexual Suggestion."
Got your attention now?
I'm going to declare Randy Newman the King of Intellectual Musical Wit (the heir-apparent, though, might be Steely Dan). Here's a test for our clearly above-average Star Maker Machine reader: did you get all OMG offended! at his epic song 'Short People' and lobby your state legislature to make playing it on the radio a crime (as Maryland attempted), or did you see it as the anti-prejudicial statement it really was? In other words, do you get Randy Newman?
'You Can Leave Your Hat On' is another in Newman's wink-wink-nudge-nudge repertoire. The title phrase seems to be the only item of clothing the narrator doesn't want removed. Newman released his version in 1972 (on 'Sail Away'); it was picked up in a big way by English blues rocker Joe Cocker in 1986 and featured in a strip scene in the film '9½ Weeks'. Tom Jones, the Welsh crooner, did the same favor in 1997 for the film 'The Full Monty'. (And he sang it live in 2002 at 'Party at the Palace', a pop concert at Buckingham Palace honoring Queen Elizabeth's 50 years on the throne. Somehow imaging Queen Liz shaking her booty to this tune keeps crawling into my brain. Bad! Bad!) Finally, blues-rock artist Marc Broussard paid homage to it on the 2006 Newman tribute album, 'Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman'.
You give me reason to live…You give me reason to live…You give me reason to live…
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