Joe Cocker With a Little Help From My Friends Review
Album Reviews: Joe Cocker – With A Piddling Assist From My Friends (1969)
Was there ever a more apt championship for an album than this ? Afterward years of playing Sheffield pubs and clubs and recording one bomb single, as Vance Arnold for Decca, Joe Cocker was finally unleashed to the masses with this accented jewel of a sixties dejection/soul album. An anthology which included a cast of musical geniuses that many a more seasoned performer must have been in awe of. Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, Henry McCullough, Tony Visconti, Albert Lee, Matthew Fisher, the listing goes on and still Cocker still out shines them all with an incredible vocal performance which is even more than commendable given his relative inexperience in a studio setting. Only maybe that is the secret as the whole thing has a existent 'alive jam' feel throughout.
Recorded in London in 1968 with Denny Cordell at the production desk "With A Little Assistance From My Friends" is a x rails mixture of covers and originals, something which Cocker favours even to this solar day. Information technology opens with a real belting version of Traffic's 'Feelin Alright'. This version of the Dave Mason composed runway is far better than the original and Cocker claims it equally his own from the get-go. There accept been many covers of it since but this remains the all-time in my opinion. Second track 'Bye Cheerio Blackbird' has been recorded past even more than people than the opener only still once more Cocker can lay claim to having laid downwardly the best modern 24-hour interval version. Helped in no small office by a blinding solo from Jimmy Page and some pretty authentic twenties manner bankroll vocals from Madelaine Bell and Rosetta and Sunny Hightower. 'Change in Louise' is the beginning of the original tracks and has a particularly pleasing melody and catchy chorus. The pianoforte from Chris Stainton is also vital to the success of the vocal. It remains a personal favourite and not just because I was stepping out with a Louise when I first heard information technology !
'Marjorine', a 2nd Cocker/Stainton composition is almost a throw back to the psychadelia of a couple of years before but is over again infuriatingly catchy and provided Cocker with his first US hitting. The mood is chop-chop taken back to the more melancholy though with the first of the two Dylan covers 'Just Like A Adult female'. Again this for me is a better version than the original or any others before or since. That may be down though to my well known dislike of Dylan's vocal way. I don't dubiousness that the bloke is ane of the finest songwriters and lyricists the earth has e'er seen I simply remain of the opinion that he tin can't sing a note.
The second half of the album kicks off with the highlight for me 'Practice I Nonetheless Figure In Your Life' is literally drenched in feeling and dripping in emotion. It remains for me Cocker's greatest ever vocal functioning and still sends a shiver down my spine even subsequently thirty odd years of listening to information technology. My only complaint is that it could have gone on for another infinitesimal or 2 especially if Steve Winwood had been immune more space for improvisation and Cocker had been encouraged to build and extend the endmost role even more. The third and final Cocker/Stainton track 'Sandpaper Cadillac' is probably the weakest cut on the album only is still no back number and probably suffers a little from its positioning although it is actually quite hard to see where else information technology could have been placed. 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' is another rails which has been recorded past more than than its fair share of people since originally being written for Nina Simone in 1964. More often connected with Eric Brunt and The Animals than Cocker he still manages to put his mark on it. Over again some great instrumentation from Henry McCullough on guitar and Tommy Eyre on the organ helps considerably.
The championship track and Cocker signature tune follows and my merely issue with information technology is its positioning. Runway iv on side two is a curious positioning for a track which was to get his best known and is clearly encore and album ending material. It makes y'all wonder whether the success was initially expected. The Cocker version is as far removed from the original Beatles version as you could imagine and is to all intents and purposes a unlike vocal in everything but lyric and basic melody. The musicianship of Jimmy Page, Tommy Eyre, Chris Stainton and BJ Wilson taking it to a musically far superior identify than the composers ever could have in the same way that Cocker, with the assistance of backing vocalists Rosetta and Sunny Hightower did with the vocal. Personally I would have concluded the album with it which would have top and tailed the anthology with uptempo experience skillful music. Instead the album closes with the second Dylan encompass 'I Shall Be Released' and my preference for the title track every bit the closer doesn't hateful that detail track is in any way flawed. Information technology merely has a sort of 'after the Lord Mayor'south evidence' type feel about it on occassions for me and would probably take been better served if it had flipped positions with the championship track.
Whenever I peruse my All Time Album Nautical chart I think I must have over rated this album as it currently stands as ane of only 50 albums I take given the maximum five stars to from the 1000 I have rated. And then I put information technology on and realise that I haven't.
© Martin Leedham. Outset published on RYM May 2011
This entry was posted in Album Reviews, Blues, Archetype Rock, Music, Music Reviews, Rock, Soul and tagged Albert Lee, Album Reviews, B J Wilson, Bob Dylan, Goodbye Goodbye Blackbird, Change In Louise, Chris Stainton, Classic Rock, Dave Mason, Denny Cordell, Practice I Withal Figure In Your Life, Don't Allow Me Be Misunderstood, Eric Burden, Feelin Alright, Henry McCullough, I Shall Be Released, Jimmy Page, Joe Cocker, Just Like A Woman, Madelaine Bell, Marjorine, Martin Leedham, Music, Music Review, Nina Simone, Stone, Rosetta Hightower, Steve Winwood, Sunny Hightower, The Animals, The Beatles, Tommy Eyre, Tony Visconti, Traffic, Vance Arnold, With a Little Help From My Friends. Bookmark the permalink.
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