Joe Cocker: Sheffield legend nominated for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but he needs a little help from his fans
A Sheffield legend who defied his modest beginnings to achieve stardom has been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Joe Cocker grew up in a house on Tasker Road, Crookes, and attended Lydgate Lane School and Sheffield Central Technical School, before becoming an apprentice gas fitter.
But from a young age music was his passion, and he first sang on stage with his older brother Victor’s skiffle group when he was just 12, formed his first band, the Cavaliers, while still a teenager, and went on to achieve huge success as a solo artist.
Hits including his chart-topping cover of the Beatles’ With A Little Help From My Friends; Up Where We Belong, which featured so memorably in the film An Officer and a Gentleman; and You Are So Beautiful, voted the fifth greatest love song of all time, made him one of the world’s best-loved soul singers.
Known for his gravelly, soulful voice and his singular dancing style, which involved flailing his arms around, he endeared himself to music lovers around the world.
Joe, who sadly died from lung cancer in Colorado, where he spent his later years, in December 14, aged 70, already has a Grammy Award to his name, and has been ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 greatest singers.
A place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for which he has been nominated, would help to seal his legacy.
He is one of 14 groups and artists vying for seven spots in a public ballot, alongside the likes of Mariah Carey, Oasis and Chubby Checker, and he needs your vote to secure his place.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website describes how Cocker’s ‘true genius lay in his rare ability to take someone else’s music and make it uniquely his own, captivating the imagination of millions of listeners’.
It adds: “Cocker’s raw and powerful voice was a rare instrument of pure passion – gritty and ravaged while also heartbreakingly tender – and his greatness was also showcased in his electrifying stage presence, which made the legendary Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour in 1970 among the most celebrated moments in rock & roll history.”
Cocker performed at pubs in and around Sheffield before his version of With A Little Help From My Friends, released in 1968, catapulted him to stardom.
Over his 40-year career, he released 23 studio albums and toured extensively, and in 2007 the singer and songwriter was honoured with an OBE.
Paul McCartney loved Cocker’s ‘mind-blowing’ cover of With A Little Help From My Friends and counted him as a ‘good mate’.
He described him as a ‘lovely guy who brought so much to the world’.
Despite the surname, Joe was no relation to another Sheffield legend, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, though he was a family friend who may have babysat for a young Jarvis and possibly fitted a fire at Jarvis’ mum’s first flat in Sheffield.
To cast your vote for the next additions to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, visit: https://vote.rockhall.com/