Joe Cocker-With Little Help From My Friends (1968)

In 1968, Joe Cocker recorded his first album, "With Little Help From My Friends", under the supervision of Denny Cordell. The album featured collaborations with excellent musicians from the British music scene of the time, including Jimmy Page, Albert Lee, Steve Winwood, Tony Visconti, Chris Stainton, and Matthew Fisher, among others a skillful selection that contributed to the power of the final result. For some time, Cocker had been performing in Great Britain and France with his Joe Cocker Big Blues Band, where they primarily played covers of black music, including blues and R&B classics. The arrival of musician and arranger Chris Stainton in Cocker's life was vital to the future of the Sheffield singer. Cocker's soulful and blues-infused style was based on his unconventional, gesticulating manner and unmistakable, frenetic stage presence, which contrasted sharply with his apparent fragility and his powerful, raspy voice. At the helm of his new band, The Grease Band, Joe Cocker toured England in support of his debut album. The following year, he performed at the Woodstock festival before a crowd of three hundred thousand, who enthusiastically applauded Cocker and his band's antics on stage. Shortly afterward, in Los Angeles, and with the invaluable assistance of Leon Russell, he recorded his second album, "Joe Cocker". Russell taught Cocker how to modulate the heavy tones of spoken-word blues and provided him with the unforgettable hit "Delta Lady". Russell oversaw the recording of this new album, which reflected a change of country and atmosphere. There was a different agility compared to his first album; it was less rough and bluesy, revealing more eclecticism and a willingness to embrace country melodies. With this renewed atmosphere, Russell's choice of musicians for the album recording greatly contributed to the success, all of them belonging to the best of the country-rock and folk groups, bands like The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers. However, this stylistic diversity between the first two albums highlights Cocker's main problem: his spontaneity, his lack of calculation or astuteness, which, while it can be a merit, ultimately becomes a dangerous flaw. This flaw lay in his inability to develop his own musical strategy, leaving him at the mercy of arrangers and composers. And unfortunately, not everyone is like Chris Stainton or Leon Russell. After the breakup of The Grease Band, Russell concocted a mega-tour with 42 musicians, which would later be released as "Mad Dog and Englishmen", a double live album featuring a repertoire full of covers of other artists such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Traffic, and four tracks from Joe Cocker's first two albums.