031195 Joe Cocker/Keb’ Mo’, Ottawa, ON

On March 11th, 1995 I went to see Joe Cocker (1944-2014) for the first time.  Curiously, he was performing at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa’s home for classical music, ballet, and (occasionally) opera.  That said, I’ve seen my fair share of rock shows in there too.  It’s not the greatest place to cut loose, but it’s not the worst venue for a rager either.

Now that I think of it, I suppose it’s apropos that Cocker played the NAC; after all, the orchestra’s bread and butter is presenting well-known material from long-dead composers.  Likewise, Joe Cocker made his legacy by creating ingenious interpretations of songs written and popularized by other artists.  I don’t think I have to give examples, but here ya go:

Feelin’ Alright was written by Traffic, You Can Leave Your Hat On was written by Randy Newman, and You Are So Beautiful is by Billy Preston (bet you didn’t know that).  Then there is The Letter (The Box Tops), Unchain My Heart (Ray Charles), Up Where We Belong (which, while first recorded by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, was written by Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie), and then of course there is his brilliant version of The Beatles’ With A Little Help From My Friends, which is arguably better than the original.

Really, was there a greater interpreter/arranger of music in the canon of rock?  “What about Elvis Presley?” many of you are asking, “He didn’t write his hits either, and he was way bigger than Joe Cocker.”

Well, yes, but Elvis had a habit of trying to recreate the recordings he was presented with as accurately as he could, so much so that when people pitched songs to him they would have the demos recorded by people that sounded as close to Elvis as possible, and many reports suggest that Elvis copied these recordings so closely that he even imitated where the singers would take a breath.

So I would argue (at the risk of being grounded if my mom reads this) that Elvis wasn’t an interpreter of songs at all; he was a mimicker.  But admittedly a very important mimicker with an incredible voice and knockout good looks (right mom?).  Joe Cocker, on the other hand, took great songs and injected even greater ideas into them.  With A Little Help From My Friends is a prime example.  Give both a listen and I think you’ll be surprised to notice how drastically different they are.

And with all due respect to Ringo and his fellow insects, Cocker’s version is much superior.  It’s staggering to imagine where he could have taken the song if The Beatles had actually recorded his version and he had that as a starting point.

Anyway, he played all of the aforementioned songs and much more at the show, and it was a lot of fun.

An interesting asterisk to this concert was the opening act, a solo Dobro-playing guitarist who was really quite astounding.  Curiously, the little note in my ticket book says this about the opening act: “…with some cool guy called something like Men-Ka or somethin’.”  Of course this was before the internet was readily accessible by regular people like me, and back then I doubt the internet would have known who Keb’ Mo’ was anyway.

Keb’ Mo’ has grown to be a legend and I have gone on to see him a few more times over the years.  Just goes to show that you should always try to see the opening act.

You never know.