If you’re just joining this ongoing journey through the decades-deep A&M Records catalog — my way of memorializing that label’s late great co-founder Jerry Moss, who died in August at 88 — let me bring you up to speed.
Last week we entered 1969 with initial offerings from the Carpenters, another soft-pop success story for this most artist-friendly of havens, emerging after the rise of two easy-listening mainstays, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ‘66. There’s plenty more worth noting from all three groups plus other mellow faves from that era, like the Sandpipers and We Five. Expect this series to bounce back and forth chronologically.
But it’s high time we shifted away from A&M’s bedrock MOR* sound and leapt headlong into a rapidly filling pool of rock.
For Moss, that pivot occurred at Monterey Pop, a scene as far from MOR as music could get in ‘67.
‘We did not have a performer there,’ Jerry recalls in the illustrative documentary about the label streaming on Prime. ‘And that bothered me because I saw all this amazing music and we were not represented. I came home and told Herbie we should do something about it.’
They quickly did, inking US distribution deals for rock rosters on UK labels like Island and Chrysalis. That scored Alpert & Moss a slew of strong commodities: Humble Pie, Free, Procol Harum, Fairport Convention, Strawbs. More on all that later.
The big breakout star, however, was undeniably Joe Cocker.
A&M was sent a demo of a ditty called ‘Marjorine,’ penned by Cocker and his frequent songwriting partner at this time, bassist Chris Stainton. Simultaneously, in late ‘68, the label acquired stateside distribution rights for Joe’s indelible rendition of Lennon/McCartney’s ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ (with Jimmy Page on guitar) via a deal with UK outlet Regal Zonophone. Throughout that same year Cocker and his second Grease Band recorded the rest of what would become his April ‘69 debut, using Ringo’s spotlight tune as its title. Second single, impacting radio that May: ‘Feeling Alright,’ often regarded as the definitive version of Dave Mason’s classic jam, first cut by Traffic.
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Three months later Cocker was the talk of Woodstock and skyrocketing to instant stardom by the time Michael Wadleigh’s must-see film drew lines around cinema blocks in 1970. By that point his second album (‘Joe Cocker!’) was an even bigger hit, nearly cracking the Billboard Top 10.
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For that LP, with Paul’s and George’s blessings — they loved how he’d done ‘With a Little Help …’ — Cocker issued his takes on ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window’ and ‘Something’ a mere two months after ‘Abbey Road’ appeared. Also included: the rollicking ‘Delta Lady,’ one of two tunes (‘Hello, Little Friend’ is the other) written by piano master Leon Russell, who of course would join Joe on a joint ‘Mad Dogs and Englishman’ tour, leading to one of the best-selling live albums of any era.
I think maybe one of the reasons Alpert and Moss particularly grasped the potential of a talent like Joe Cocker stems from his abilities as interpreter, much more so than songwriter — a trait that moguls steeped in jazz-pop crossovers could appreciate. Not that the raspy spastic was incapable of quality authorship: in cahoots with bassist Chris Stainton, he pulls his weight on the debut with solid rockers like ‘Change in Louise’ and ‘Sandpaper Cadillac,’ the latter of which has just enough melodic spook to be an offbeat pick for a Halloween mix.
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But Cocker in ‘69 ultimately has more in common with Janis Joplin or Tom Jones: great voices giving soulful expression to songs whose original versions seem plaintive by comparison. I don’t mean the first editions as published by Dylan or Cohen or the Lovin’ Spoonful etc. aren’t teeming with meaning and captivating nuances. It’s just that Cocker brings something uniquely different to the material — not just those powerful pipes and his Ray Charles-ish tone and phrasing but also his grittier arrangements (I’ll take his ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ over the Animals’s every time).
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He never quite gets the credit he should for having been such a premiere rock interpreter, a Hall of Fame-worthy talent (certainly deserving of at least Musical Excellence induction) who requires only that soul-splitting rendition of Billy Shears’s staple for proof.
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I’m permanently fluid when it comes to ranking things, with a few exceptions. Above all others: which songs I feel include the greatest screams of all time. Cocker’s studio wail on ‘With a Little Help …’ is Top 5. However, the deranged howl he let out while performing it at Woodstock, powerful enough to split a dark sky open for deluge, vies for the top spot, alongside Roger Daltrey’s final cry in ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’ Part of me still wants to dock that Who tune a notch because of ‘CSI’ overexposure, which would elevate James Brown’s scream in ‘The Payback’ to No. 1. Still, Cocker at Woodstock could dethrone it.
Here’s the (*) bit: I’ve never understood why it’s MOR and not MOTR, apart from the fact that MOTR doesn’t spill out of the mouth half as easily as its slightly shorter counterpart. If you’re going to include the article O in that acronym, why not the T too? Why not just MR, Mr. Record Rackjobber? Worked well enough for AM and FM.