Heart & Soul - Cocker, Joe (CD 2005)

Sometimes it s just too simple. Good songs plus good singer equals good album. Duh. Ahh, but then, we as an audience have come to expect more from our singers. We want them to write their own songs, and well, not all our best songwriters can sing (paging Bob Dylan), and the ability to write great songs is rarely bestowed upon our best singers. Sure, there are some people who can do both, but for years we didn t expect artists to do double-duty as singer-songwriters.

Once upon a time, there were two kinds of people. The songwriters and the singers. Oh, and then, there were song sellers, so that makes three kinds of people. And then, of course, there were people like us, with no special talent for singing, songwriting, or selling, but loved to listen so that makes four kinds of people.

At any rate, once upon a time, all four different kinds of people pretty much did their own jobs. The songwriters wrote songs. The singers sang em. The sellers sold em, and we bought em. And everyone got really good at what they did. It may have been an elementary formula, but it worked: Good songs plus good singing equals good music. Good music plus good salespeople plus a good audience equals more good music.

Huzzah! Isn t it neat when everything works?

But, it doesn t anymore. The balance has been upset; the musical ecosystem interrupted. Songwriters wanted to sing because they wanted to be rock stars. Singers wanted to be songwriters because they wanted publishing royalties. Sellers didn t care whether anyone could sing or write songs, so much as they could sell something, and we, the audience, started to resent the sellers, and as a result we became suspicious of singers who didn t write their own songs (and to an extent, vice versa). Where good music used to be a partnership between good singers and good songwriters, we in the audience started to think that good music could only be created by one artist doing both jobs.

Now, I ask you, is that fair?

Can we conscionably discredit Judy Garland as an artist because she merely sang songs like Over the Rainbow ? Or Frank Sinatra because he merely sang Fly Me to the Moon ?

Or, for heaven s sake, can we possibly look askance at Joe Cocker s body of work because he only sang With a Little Help From My Friends ? Is it too much for us to accept that though Cocker may not have set the words to music, he did something at least equally artistically valid in breathing three-dimensional, super-powered, totally Pentecostal tongues of flame into what was essentially a dorky Ringo Starr novelty?

- - - - -
Joe Cocker s not a songwriter. He only sings. But damn! To call what he does only singing is a colossal missing of the point.

And to call his newest album Heart and Soul merely an album of covers is sort of silly. Such a label brings to mind karaoke-minded records by artists looking for the quick cash-in, or the easy stop-gap or holiday product. It s both more charitable, and more accurate to call Heart and Soul a collection of interpretations of songs that other people have already made famous, rendered with journeyman craftsmanship and drama by one of the most recognizable and compelling voices of the last not-quite-forty years. And if the title itself sounds clich d and generic, the performances contained within go a long way to re-claiming that overused phrase for the truly heart-and-soulful.

Rather than relying on his usual set of publisher s house staff originals, for this new record, Cocker has opted for time-tested standards drawn from all of those not-quite-forty years (and beyond), including compositions by the likes of Lieber & Stoller, the resident old white guys of 50 s R&B ( I (Who Have Nothing) and I Keep Forgetting ), to obvious soul favorites like Chain of Fools and Marvin Gaye s What s Goin On , to solo hits by ex-Beatles ( Jealous Guy and Maybe I m Amazed ), all the way on to contemporary classics like his intimate, album-closing rendition of R.E.M. s Everybody Hurts (choke on this, Michael Stipe), and U2 s One , a treatment which goes farther toward realizing eternal world peace than a hundred Bonos combined could ever dream of doing.

Later, having saved humanity with his vocal magnificence, Cocker keeps us all together with a reassuringly light-and-folksy take on Every Kinda People (made famous by Robert Palmer, another expert interpreter, in the late 70s), a perfect foil to U2-style bombast.

There may be no reinventions here quite as drastic as his career-making take on With a Little Help From My Friends although John Lennon s Jealous Guy is morphed into a nifty honky-tonk stomp - but especially on the ballads, Cocker s performances can make one wonder how they could ever love a song before hearing Cocker singing it, even on songs like What s Going On? or Rose Royce s Love Don t Live Here Anymore , which have been covered often. On Maybe I m Amazed , Cocker achieves the kind of sincerity and emotional grandeur Paul McCartney could only hint at with his over-singing on the original. And in Cocker s deeply age-worn, phlegmy voice, the words take on a new dimension: where McCartney s version was a tribute to new love, Cocker s sounds like a fifty-year anniversary renewal of vows. Maybe? Uh-uh: Definitely amazing.

Even more amazing is that Cocker (who executive produced the collection) had enough faith in his performances to let them shine mostly on their own. Sure, he gets by with a little help from friends Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck (who both contribute solid bluesy solos on I (Who Have Nothing and I Put a Spell On You ), not to mention classy guests like jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, and veteran session men like Steve Lukather, but no one ever tries to hog Cocker s spotlight. Where other artists his age might attempt to prove their lasting (commercial) relevance with feature duets by, say, Maroon 5 s lead singer (what s his name again? Aww, who cares?), Cocker invariably takes the microphone alone.

And that s the way it should be. Good songs. Good singer. Good music. It sounds kind of old-fashioned and quaint, really. But Heart and Soul proves to anyone who might doubt the formula that genuine artistry is always fashionable.

- - - - -
BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Heart and Soul by Joe Cocker
New Door Records
Released 2/15/05

Produced by Jeffrey C.J. Vanston
52 min.

SONGS: What s Going On Chain of Fools One I (Who Have Nothing) Maybe I m Amazed I Keep Forgetting I Put a Spell On You Every Kind of People Love Don t Live Here Anymore Don t Let Me Be Lonely Jealous Guy Everybody Hurts