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Rock Hall Righteous Recognition: Joe Cocker!!!

Certainly the late Joe Cocker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame years ago, right? Joe Cocker who sang definitive versions of "Feelin' Alright","With a Little Help from My Friends","The Letter","Cry Me a River","Unchain My Heart","You Can Leave Your Hat On","Up Where We Belong","She Came in Through the Bathroom Window","Delta Lady","When the Night Comes", and "You Are So Beautiful" must have been a first ballot lock for Rock Hall induction, right? Listen here and consider how such an egregious omission could have continued until now.

Joe Cocker- Mad Dogs, Englishmen, & Rock Hall of Fame- with Leon Russell

...So when it took 36 years after Cocker's iconic coming-out party at the Woodstock Festival for me to get access, understandably I was anxious as to what I would get. As you'll hear, Joe Cocker was a lovable gentle soul who was a great conversationalist , sometimes endearing , often hysterically funny. And the addition of guest Mad Dogs & Englishmen musical director Leon Russell answered a lot of questions about both of their subsequent careers after this tour, double live album , and feature film. Redbeard
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Joe Cocker- Mad Dogs & Englishmen 55th- with Leon Russell

Here are the first-person accounts by Joe Cocker and Leon Russell of a remarkable multi-media event, the Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen  US tour, concert film, and soundtrack double album 55 years ago.

Jethro Tull- Benefit @55- Ian Anderson

They were the changes  in musical direction and key personnel made on Jethro Tull's critical preceding third album,"Benefit", in April 1970, which provided the oxygen in "Aqualung" 's tank a year later. Ian Anderson is my guest for your "Benefit".
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Woodstock- Carlos Santana, Pete Townshend, Graham Nash

Woodstock Festival July 1969 was unequaled in sheer scale, still heard in the voices of Carlos Santana, Pete Townshend, the late Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and the late Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, all here In the Studio in part one.
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Steve Winwood- Back in the High Life

"Higher Love", the #1 seller and winner of both the "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year" Grammys for 1986, isn't about doing it in the top bunk. It's about love on a spiritual plane, not an airplane. By his mid-twenties, Steve Winwood already may have  been on a hall of fame career pace, singing and playing hits as a mere teenager with the Spencer Davis Group ("Gimme Some Lovin' "," I'm a Man"), Traffic, and Blind Faith. Yet Winwood told me in this  classic rock interview about 1986's "Back in the High Life"  that a 1972 bout with peritonitis almost killed him...

Jeff Healey 1966-2008

...(cont) every headline before and since the cancer-related premature death of blues-rock phenomenon Jeff Healey March 2, 2008 has included the qualifier "blind guitarist" , as if Healey's mind-blowing facility and unique technique on the instrument,his more-than-competent rich vocals,his uncanny choice of material,and Jeff's wicked ultra-dry sense of humor were less defining of the man than his inability to read the drive-through menu at Taco Bell...(more)

The Late Joe Cocker Paid Tribute to Ray Charles

To continue celebrating American Black History Month here In The Studio, I'm reminded of the definition of rock and roll as told to me by Mr. "Blue Suede Shoes" himself , the late Carl Perkins , " The Blues and Country and Western had a baby , and they called it Rock'n'Roll ." Seeing as we were in Nashville at the time , Perkins could easily have laid it all at the toe-tapping feet of Hank Williams , a rebel Nashville outsider without whom rock simply would not exist ...(more)

John Hiatt- Tennessee Plates- 3-93 Dallas

Now that Randy Newman has been inducted, here's my nomination for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the most deserving American songwriter working today: John Hiatt. Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton and B.B.King, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker,…