1995<\/p>\n
Festival Theatre<\/p>\n
Adelaide<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
It was once just a Lennon and McCartney throwaway. With a<\/em> Little Help from My Friend<\/em>s, a Ringo song that George Formby might have written. Then, out of nowhere , came\u00a0 a version that transformed it into a soul gospel classic. Joe Cocker, gas fitter from Sheffield, had discovered some serious pipes of his own and was being hailed as the rival of Ray Charles and Otis Redding.<\/p>\n Celebrating twenty five years in the biz and embarking on his tenth tour of Australia, Joe Cocker has never been in better fettle and fans will be delighted. His current album, Have a Little Faith<\/em>, is his strongest since he became a civilised man. After the rip-offs and chaos and the patchy albums with song selections which seemed to have\u00a0 landed by parachute, Joe Cocker is a leading performer in the adult-oriented charts.\u00a0 Astute management and\u00a0 top production values\u00a0 have positioned him, as they say. He is major product. The mad dog has come in from the noonday sun.<\/p>\n On a circumnavigating twenty six gig tour Cocker and his seven member touring band have put together a show as assured and smartly-produced as the album. In a spray of burgundy varilights-or should that be grapella ?- Joe opens with Let The<\/em> Healing Begin<\/em>. Choppy drum rhythms, gliding keyboards\u00a0 garnished with elegant guitar Knopflerisms. It could be Fleetwood Mac. Except, at the centre of the careful choreography, the superb sound rig and\u00a0 the high-tech\u00a0 magenta and baize green lighting is Joe Cocker, survivor, in classic pose – arms splayed back, chest pushed forward like a bullfinch, his grizzled features scrunched in concentration as he sings his songs of experience.<\/p>\n The themes are all about making it through. A little faith, simple things, shelter from the storm- with, of course, a little help… The music combines\u00a0 the balm of gospel with\u00a0 the grit of rhythm and blues and the voltage of rock and roll. We, he reassures us, can stand a little rain.<\/p>\n Without comment or introduction, Cocker powers through the classic repertoire- Feeling Alright<\/em>, and a colossal version of Hitchcock<\/em> Railroad<\/em>,\u00a0 Ken Strange thundering on piano and the back-up vocals\u00a0 from Stacy Campbell and Maxine Green reaching up where Joe’s used to belong. John Hiatt’s Have a Little Faith <\/em>is spacious and affecting,\u00a0 Cocker’s newest greatest hit. Other signatures get an airing- Up Where We Belong<\/em>,\u00a0 the Grammy one, and Keep\u00a0 Your Hat On<\/em>,\u00a0 belted out like Randy Newman had never heard of irony.<\/p>\n Anchored by the heavily-miked thump from drummer Jack Bruno,\u00a0 Warren McRae’s\u00a0 steadying bass line,\u00a0 Ken Strange as the ghost of Leon, Steven Grove doubling on keyboards and yakkety-sax, and Paul Warren on skitey hot-lick guitars, the musicians provide a frame of showband virtuosity.\u00a0 Too Cool<\/em> is\u00a0 their chance to open out, while Joe changes his shirt and lights come down for the piano and bass version of You Are So Beautiful<\/em>.\u00a0 The phrasing is there but Cocker, ever grainy and expressive in the middle registers, poignantly strains over “to me”. The crowd goes wild – heard melodies are\u00a0 sweet but sometimes those unheard are sweeter.<\/p>\n \u201cMad Dog Survivor\u201d The Australian, September 13, 1995, p.14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1995 Festival Theatre Adelaide Murray Bramwell It was once just a Lennon and McCartney throwaway. With a Little Help from My Friends, a Ringo song that George Formby might have written. Then, out of nowhere , came\u00a0 a version that transformed it into a soul gospel classic. Joe Cocker, gas fitter from Sheffield, had discovered some serious pipes of his own and was being hailed as the rival of Ray Charles and Otis Redding. Celebrating twenty five years in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1144,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}