A Tribute to Joe from Charlie Midnight. Joe Cocker Lives On Joe Cocker is not gone. He lives on through his music and his raw emotional voice that will be appreciated for generations to come. There will not be another like him. He had a voice too true for auto-tuning and a soulfulness too wild to be restrained. I was blessed to produce two albums for him and bear witness to the purity of his vocal power. I sat in the control room watching him, more as a fan than a producer. Each time he sang a song it was a new interpretation. No two performances were the same. His singing was uncalculating and uncompromising. Four or five ‘takes’ and he was done. It was full-out each time and there was no going back to ‘punch in’ or ‘double’ a line. Joe was able to touch your heart in the studio and on stage: in his younger days when he reached high falsetto screams; or in his later years where he often could not get to the note but you were moved by whatever sound came through that weathered, gravelly voice. Joe Cocker is not gone and will not be forgotten as long as exists his transcendent, re-imagined rendition of “A Little Help From My Friends,” captured in the historic film of the 1969 Woodstock Concert. In that indelible moment he raised the art of interpretative singing and a Beatles song became a Joe Cocker classic. The film will be watched by future generations and each one will view Joe Cocker with the same awe as we all did when after the backing vocals sang “do you need anybody” he let out a primal scream for the ages that could never be notated or taught. I watched it on screen as a teenager, amazed and profoundly moved. Years later, as Joe’s producer, I remembered that feeling and as he sang in the studio I felt it again and again and again. Those memories and feelings will never leave me and neither will Joe Cocker. Charlie Midnight
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 17:43:19 +0000
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