Goodbye Dear Joe

 By Doug Draper 

“Come together
raise up your voices
This time my song of love and life won’t go away
Ill sing forever
here in the sunshine
I’ve lived to see the sun break through the storm
And I’m so glad I’m standing here today.”

When Joe Cocker finished singing those lyrics at the 1981 Grammy Awards, the audience responded with a long, heartfelt ovation. Many a fan of this most unlikely living legend of a singer no doubt shed a few joyous tears as they watched the performance on their screens at home.

A young Joe Cocker, wings now spread and in full flight at the legengary Woodstock Festival in 1969

That song – so aptly titled “I’m so Glad I’m Standing here today” – served as a declaration that Joe Cocker, unlike too many of his Woodstock-era contemporaries like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, survived the alcohol and drug addictions he shared with them and went on to place his gravely, Ray Charles blues-drenched stamp on great songs that, while not composed by him, would forever become his own.

He did it at the dawn of his recording career in the late 1960s with covers of the Beatle songs ‘With a Little Help from my Friends’and ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window’, Traffic’s ‘Feelin’ Alright’, the Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’ and the Lovin’ Spoonfulls’ ‘Darling Be Home Soon’, and he did it decades later with Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Academy Award-winning ‘Up Where We Belong’ and Randy Newman’s ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’, and so many others, right up to the time of his death from lung cancer at age 70 – this past Monday, December 22^nd, 2014.

In a year of coming to term with losses, for some of us in our personal circle of family and friends, and the loss of admired others like the voice-for-justice troubadour Pete Seeger, it is particularly hard to say goodbye to a most passionate, gentle giant like Joe Cocker in the final days of a year of so much downcast news around the world.

The last time I saw Joe Cocker perform, five years ago at a concert on the Amherst campus of the State University of New York, he seemed as strong and in as command of the stage as ever – he was a performer whose presence filled a stage in a most spell-binding way – and when he let out with that iconic scream three ways through ‘A Little Help From My Friends’ it rang out with a strength that brought the audience to its feet.

Joe Cocker may have died this past December 22^nd, but in so many ways, for people working to overcome addictions and other challenges in their lives, he was a survivor.

Your determined and courageous spirit will live on Joe.

For younger readers who may not know, download a performance of Joe doing ‘A Little Help From My Friends’ and move on to the great film documentary ‘Mad Dogs & Englishmen’. And I can assure you, you will want to explore more of the music this wonderful, warm person shared with us.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your thoughts on the passing of Joe Cocker below.)