Goodbye, Joe

With the Dec. 22 death of Joe Cocker at age 70, the music world lost one of its most singular and durable talents.

A native of Sheffield, England, Cocker first achieved fame in 1969 when his 11-song Woodstock set took the hippie generation by storm and established his modus operandi: Play fast and/or loose with the time signatures, instrumentation, and tempi of material made famous by other performers, and then sing it with a gravel-throated soulfulness that at its most intense could terrify the faint of heart.

Two of Cocker’s Woodstock songs, Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” and The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends,” remained staples of his performances. That those performances continued for over 40 years (and that they would, as demonstrated by his 2013 concert DVD Fire It Up: Live, still sell out coliseums) might have surprised his early fans. As an alcoholic who more than once during the 1970s actually vomited on stage, Cocker appeared to be headed for an early rock-star grave even while scoring some of the decade’s biggest hits (“You Are So Beautiful,” “The Letter”).

By 1980, however, he had sobered up, inspiring Will Jennings and Joe Sample to compose the gospel-sounding survivor anthem “I’m So Glad I’m Standing Here Today” just for him. Cocker’s recording of the song with The Crusaders earned him the first of his half-dozen Grammy nominations in 1981. Two years later, he won a “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal” Grammy for “Up Where We Belong,” his chart-topping duet with Jennifer Warnes. In between he recorded Sheffield Steel, one of the strongest and most consistent albums of his career thanks in large part to the rhythm-section muscle provided by Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.

In 1984, Cocker turned 40 and released the tellingly titled Civilized Man. From that point on, he settled into a workmanlike routine that found him recording and touring to generally indifferent North American audiences but increasingly enthusiastic European ones. At the time of his death, he hadn’t hit the U.S. Top 40 for a quarter century (“When the Night Comes”), but his most recent studio efforts, Hard Knocks (2010) and Fire It Up (2012), had gone platinum in Germany.

His knack for inventive rearrangements receded, but the impassioned, heartbroken quality of his singing did not, giving him continued emotional access to generically inspirational material. His 2007 album Hymn for My Soul even made Billboard’s Christian-music chart.

Cocker’s continuous productivity made each of his periodically issued compilations feel incomplete. Alas, now that his 45-year career has finally come to an end, the sad task of assembling the definitive package can finally begin.

Back to the Future Islands

Cocker’s posthumous discography notwithstanding, his influence doesn’t seem to be in danger of abating—that is, not if the popularity of the indie synth-pop band Future Islands is any indication.

Singles (4AD), the group’s latest and most accomplished album, has appeared on many critics’ best-of-2014 lists. And, like Future Islands’ previous releases, it features the singing of Samuel T. Herring, a vocalist in the Cocker tradition if ever there was one.

The similarities haven’t always been apparent. Not until the band’s second album, In Evening Air, did Herring get in touch with his inner growler and then only tentatively. One listen, however, to such Singles tracks as “In the Tall Grass” and “Spirit” reveals Herring’s growing affinity for the sort of blue-eyed soulfulness that might someday find him receiving invitations to sing “You Are So Beautiful” at Cocker tribute shows. —A.O.