There was a before, there was an after. Fifty years ago, the Woodstock wave swept the world. Europe 1 makes you relive, at the time of the festivals of the summer, the history of this revolution, not only by what it brought, but also by those which incarnated it. Today, Joe Cocker.
A tube lent by the Beatles
What is the connection between Ray Charles and Joe Cocker? At first, there should not have been any. There was little more culturally removed than the blind genius, born in Georgia and major figure of African-American music, and the small English Sheffield, the post-war steel capital of the United Kingdom. And yet. One evening, on the radio, the "lad" as they say there discovers the voice of Ray Charles. His life will never be the same, his relationship to music either. And the legend claims that Ray Charles believed for many years that Joe Cocker was black like him.
Just released, the first album of Sheffield's baby is a triumph. It contains an incredible cover of an innocent piece of The Beatles, which makes it unrecognizable and sublime at the same time, With a Little Help From My Friends. Title it will resume Sunday, August 17, 1969. It is 3 pm, and with his Grease Band musicians, this shaggy guy, simply dressed in jeans and a colorful T-shirt, begins his moment of bravery on the Woodstock scene.
On stage, Joe Cocker waved his hands in all directions, imitating the guitar or the drums, as if in a rhythmic convulsion, his features disfigured by his vocal, possessed performance. An almost shocking appearance in its authenticity, a kind of Janis Joplin in the masculine. As much as the Beatles were skeptical about his idea of going back to With A Little Help From My Friends, Paul McCartney will soon be paying tribute to him. "He turned the song into a soul anthem, we are eternally grateful to him," he says. Thus transfigured, the title ranks number 1 in England.
Revenge and Forfeiture of Sheffield Kid
For Joe Cocker, it's a real revenge on fate. He, who, a few months earlier, repaired the Sheffield pipes for a gas company, now makes tubes for the whole world. He will never forget his modest origins. But that's the problem: become a star almost overnight, he is carried away in spite of himself in the circus of rock business.
In 1970, a few months after Woodstock, while he asks only to rest and digest his new notoriety, he is forced to embark on an endless tour in the United States: 48 cities will be visited in a few weeks, with a group that includes, some evenings, 30 musicians on stage. Result: a double live album, a documentary titled Mad Dogs And Englishmen and a worldwide success. But Joe Cocker is exhausted, overwhelmed, depressed, alcoholic ... and soon heroin addict.
A chaotic return
For two years, the singer turned off the light. The return is chaotic. In 1974, in full promotion of the ironically titled album I Can Stand at Little Rain ("I can stand a little downpour"), Joe Cocker is expected on the prestigious Roxy scene in Los Angeles. This is the moment or never to revive his career, many stars have made the trip. But Cocker, in a deplorable state, is unable to take out any notes. And the concert is canceled. Too bad, because the record is good, including a piece, the most famous but also the most touching, You Are So Beautiful.
You Are So Beautiful will rank number 5 in the United States, now the country of adoption of Joe Cocker, the one where his fans are the most numerous. Logic for this absolute admirer of Ray Charles and great bluesmen. Fortunately, because the singer has incurred huge debts to his record company, and it is the concerts and television appearances that allow him to keep his head out of the water (but not always the alcohol).
Cocker makes his cinema
While we think everything is over for him in the early 1980s, Joe Cocker discovers a new vein: songs for the cinema. A commercial resurrection, if not artistic. No. 1 in 1982 for the soundtrack of the movie Officer and Gentleman , the singer finished platinum four years later for 9 and a half weeks. Kim Basinger's unforgettable striptease scene on the song You Can Leave Your Hat On.
The loop was completed in 1987 with a robust recovery of his hero, the one he listened to teenager with his transistor under the pillow, the one he imitated in the clubs of Sheffield workers in the early 1960s. He dubbed it one night on TV and said that the Englishman's voice was an extension of his. Ray Charles is revisited by Joe Cocker on Unchain My Heart.
In the late 1980s, Joe Cocker won the toughest fight of his life. He became a reference again, asked everywhere and celebrated as such. He defeated his demons, found love with his wife Pam Baker, and moved to Colorado. He will build a ranch a few years later, where he will grow all kinds of tomatoes from all over the world.
The latest honors of the greatest English bluesman
It is also the moment of honors: he plays for the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth, is made an officer of the British Empire, then honorary citizen of the city of Sheffield, where it all began. His latest studio album, "Fire It Up," comes out in 2012. Two years before his death, at the age of 70, from lung cancer.
"He was arguably the greatest soul and blues singer in England," said his manager, summing up his millions of fans around the world, starting with the last two Beatles still alive, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, in other words, the composer and the singer of the famous With A Little Help From My Friends they had lent to Joe Cocker with the success that we know.
Find all the other episodes of our series "Woodstock, 50 years later":
> Episode 1: The origins of the most iconic festivals
> Episode 2: Richie Havens, the story of a fate that topples
> Episode 3: Tim Hardin, dubbed by Bob Dylan, destroyed by drugs
> Episode 4: Joan Baez, the consciousness of a generation
> Episode 5: Santana, and the legend was created
> Episode 6: Canned Heat, as long as the blues live
> Episode 7: Creedence Clearwater Revival, the essential casting error
> Episode 8: Janis Joplin, the pearl of the sixties
> Episode 9: Sly and the Family Stone, downtown funk
> Episode 10: The Who, the rebirth in Woodstock
> Episode 11: Jefferson Airplane, the group of origins