Joe Cocker - Cry Me A River

A showbiz treasure’s return to form

For those who swear by this former East Midlands gas board fitter, the prospect of just over two audio-visual hours of his sweaty bellyaching must be like sighting Eldorado. This footage is all the more piquant for dating from the early 80s when, mastering his inner chaos, Cocker was pulling back from an abyss of financial and drugrelated horrors. He’d even managed an international chart comeback with a film tie-in duet with Jennifer Warnes.

Up Where We Belong does not, however, figure anywhere in these two German concerts, one held in a Berlin auditorium, the other at an outdoor festival in the era just before giant video screens and lighting gantries like oil derricks became the norm. Nevertheless, the technical quality is television standard and the performances freighted with thoroughly road-drilled accompaniment, including a female chorale. Crucially, the expected hits and items of like persuasion from other sources, delivered with a whole lotta soul and the gruff charm that slayed the crowd at Woodstock, remain the yardstick by which all subsequent Cocker recitals are still measured.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Eagle Vision | EREDV 703

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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