Joe Cocker, the gravel-voiced singer best known for his cover of the Beatles song With A Little Help From My Friends, has died, aged 70.
The Sheffield-born star, whose career spanned more than 40 years, was hailed today as “the greatest rock/soul voice ever to come out of Britain” by.
Paul McCartney led the tributes for Cocker, who had been fighting small cell lung cancer.
He said: “It’s really sad to hear about Joe’s passing. He was a lovely northern lad who I loved a lot. I knew him through the years as a good mate.
"He was a great guy, a lovely guy who brought so much to the world and we’ll all miss him.”
McCartney said Cocker had turned With A Little Help From My Friends into a soul anthem “and I was forever grateful for him for doing that”.
Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr, who took lead vocals on the Beatles version of the song, tweeted: “Goodbye and God bless to Joe Cocker.”
Fan Ricky Gervais tweeted: “RIP the mighty Joe Cocker.”
The singer – who was born on May 20, 1944 in Crookes, Sheffield – fell in love with music at an early age.
He performed for the first time at the age of 12 at a local youth club when his older brother Victor asked him to sing with his skiffle group.
By the time he was 15 he had quit school to become a gas fitter and play music by night. He bought a second-hand drum kit and formed The Cavaliers, who made their first public appearance at the Minerva Tavern in Sheffield.
But success didn’t come and Cocker renamed himself Cowboy Joe, allegedly inspired by the nickname of his parents’ window cleaner.
He started stepping out as a frontman and quickly secured a deal with Decca, dropping the name Cowboy.
His first recording, for which he received 50p in royalties, was a cover of the Beatles’ track I’ll Cry Instead.
Success, again, failed to materialise, and after losing his recording contract Cocker went back to fitting gas heaters in Sheffield.
He finally hit the big time in 1968 when he took With a Little Help From My Friends to No1 in the singles chart.
The Beatles sent him a congratulatory telegram and even put adverts in the music press praising his version of the track from their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Cocker, who said he came up with the arrangement for the track in the outside lavatory of his parents’ home, became friends with the group.
He said: “If one of The Beatles invited you over to their house, it was like an audience with royalty. I remember George playing Something to me, and Paul gave me the song She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.
"I actually got my version out before they did.”
It was also 1968 that brought the first signs of a darker future when Cocker was charged with having cannabis. in his Chelsea flat. His then partner, Eileen Webster, said the drugs were hers and escaped with a fine.
The following year Cocker’s performance at the legendary Woodstock festival, complete with trademark stage gyrations, cemented his success.
But in a few short years he found himself kicked out of Australia after being arrested for possessing marijuana. Worse, he became addicted to heroin and his heavy drinking increased.
Cocker struggled so badly that he often forgot the lyrics to his own songs as he performed. “If I’d been stronger mentally, I could have turned away from temptation,” he said.
“But there was no rehab back in those days. Drugs were readily available, and I dived in head first. And once you get into that downward spiral, it’s hard to pull out of it. It took me years to get straight.”
While the 70s were a write-off musically, the 80s were far kinder. He had a global hit when he duetted with Jennifer Warnes on Up Where We Belong, the theme song from An Officer And A Gentleman. The song also brought him a Grammy and an Oscar.
Cocker’s career may have nosedived in the 70s, but he said that meeting his wife Pam in 1978 saved his life. “Pam helped me get myself back together,” he said.
“She made me realise people still wanted to hear me sing, and convinced me I could escape the downward spiral.”
After beating heroin, he gave up the booze nine years ago. And in 2007 he was given an OBE for his services to music, an honour he received with a typical quip.
“Prince Charles gave it to me – I didn’t get the Queen,” he said. “Anyway, it’s a nice medal.”
It wasn’t to be Cocker’s last appointment with royalty, as he performed with other rock legends at Buckingham Palace during the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002.
Home, for the past three decades, has been the Mad Dog Ranch – named after his Mad Dogs and Englishman album – in the Elk Mountains in Crawford, Colorado, where he grew tomatoes.
