Joe Cocker, English Rock Singer, Is Dead at 70

[Valin]

NY Times:

BEN SISARIO

DEC. 22, 2014

 

Joe Cocker, the gravelly British singer who became one of pop’s most recognizable interpreters in the late 1960s and ’70s with passionate, idiosyncratic takes on songs like the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” died on Monday at his home in Crawford, Colo. He was 70.

 

The cause was lung cancer, his agent, Barrie Marshall, said.

 

Mr. Cocker had been a journeyman singer in Britain for much of the 1960s, building a reputation as a soulful barreler with full-throated versions of Ray Charles and Chuck Berry songs. But he became a sensation after his performance of “With a Little Help From My Friends” at the Woodstock festival in 1969.

 

His appearance there, captured in the 1970 concert film “Woodstock,” established him as one of pop’s most powerful and irrepressible vocalists. With his tie-dyed shirt and shaggy muttonchops soaked in sweat, Mr. Cocker, then 25, pleadingly teased out the song’s verses — “What would you do if I sang out of tune?/Would you stand up and walk out on me?” — and threw himself into repeated climaxes, lunging and gesticulating in ways that seemed to imitate a guitarist on a heroic solo.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

 

http://youtu.be/wKNJj6MsGfI

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpz1Rsiw0AU&list=PLCDFDdgELFOl8LY8Ib2TWuAN_uhJfbZRY

[nickydog]

I liked Joe Cocker.

[Geee]

 

You Are So Beautiful one of my favs!!!

 

And I Shall Be Realeased too!!!

[SrWoodchuck]

My favorite Joe Cocker.....Requiescat in Pace