What was the deal with Joe Cocker at Woodstock? I’ve seen a video of him performing “A Little Help from my Friends” and he looked like he had some severe neurological ailment.
It seems like I remember someone telling me he had something like that but can’t find any info on it.
John Belushi did an imitation of him on SNL 20 years ago and that’s what made me think of this (it aired in reruns here last night).
I thought the same thing the first time I saw him. That’s just the way he performs.
IIRC, he said he modeled his performance style on Ray Charles’ movements at the piano.
Actually, a lot of the time he appears to be playing air guitar.
Although his movements are odd, I’ve never heard that they are due to any kind of ailment. That’s just his mannerism.
If it’s the episode I’m remembering, in which Cocker was the musical guest, I seem to recall that he didn’t look any too pleased with Belushi’s performance, probably because it was dead on target!
He did/does look spastic when he sings. This thread reminded me of the time many years ago when I saw Bob Seger. I seem to remember him singing that way too, but to a lesser extent. Did Seeger sing like that or am I just misremembering?
Look more closely - that is obviously a four-string bass air guitar.
No, Joe Cocker wasn’t the musical guest on this particular episode although epguides.com credits Joe Cocker as a guest. Snltranscripts.jt.org shows that it was John Belushi imitating Joe Cocker, which was obvious to me. This was the 3rd episode ever (1975). Rob Reiner was the host and there was no musical guest.
Joe Cocker was musical guest on the second episode of 1976. He and Belushi performed “Feelin’ Alright” side by side.
About ten years ago I did voice-over training. We were encouraged to do whatever it takes physically to get a particular sound out of our mouths, if that’s what the job called for. A number of professional V/O guys are notorious for the gymnastics they perform to get their voices to pay off.
In another vein, there’s always been a payoff for white guys who can look and/or sound black, ever since the days of the minstrel shows. Long ago, when white interaction with blacks was at a minimum, One did not have to try particularly hard to seem black to a white audience:
Ex. 1: A white person in blackface does not look a thing like a black person to anyone who as actually taken a look at a black person.
Ex. 2: This one’s hard for me to believe, given that Elvis does not sound black to me, but:
-Fred Bronson, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits
Later, after some color barriers were broken, and white people actually saw and heard black performers on a regular basis, white performers trying to pass as possessing that intagible quality called “soul” had to try a lot harder.
My favorite illustration of this: Listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ recording of “Higher Ground”, a fantastic, high-energy version of that song. Now listen to Stevie Wonder’s original. The intensity that RHCP delivers, with the band at top volume and Anthony Kiedis wailing at the top of his lungs over them is achieved by Wonder hardly breaking a sweat.
Joe Cocker’s stuff is meant to be heard, not seen, like a voice-over artist. I have seen him on that 1976 SNL episode. It is plain to me that his gyrations were what he had to do in order to get that deep soulful voice to come out of his pasty, Brit-boy body.
…and then there’s the obvious: that Joe Cocker’s life as a performer, particularly around the time of Woodstock, probably included more than his fair share of drugs and alcohol. If you’ve ever been to a Grateful Dead show, you could see a thousand Joe Cockers doing the exact same gyrations in the audience.
Ask most (pop/soul) singers, they’ll tell you it’s natural to want to move your hands and your body as part of the expression. Shoot them up with some cocaine, feed them some reds, wash it down with half a bottle of Beefeater, and if they’re still ambulatory, chances are they’ll put on a show.
Of course, Joe said he wasn’t feeling too good himself…
Before making allegations like that, you might want to know whether it’s true, you know, facts and the like. And if you don’t have the facts, don’t “probably” allege them.