Synopsis
Dust-jacket reads: With A Little Help From My Friends is the fully authorised biography of Joe Cocker, England's most innovative white blues singer and soul voice. It has been written with Joe's full co-operation and draws on dozens of interviews with his family, friends, musical colleagues and business associates. Unstinting in its research, With A Little Help ... traces Cocker's life from his days as a Sheffield gasfitter through teenage bands in South Yorkshire to early success in the UK, the pivotal Mad Dogs & Englishmen episode and the agonising career slump that followed. While many wrote Cocker off as a shambolic has-been, Joe refused to throw in the towel and his career renaissance during the eighties provides a fitting climax to this long awaited biography. But along the way there have been many lows, and author J.P. Bean has left no stone unturned in dealing with the well publicised problems that Joe has faced: drug addiction and an overdependence on alcohol, disastrous career moves and financial imprudence, brushes with the law and the criticism heaped on him during periods when Joe's confidence was shattered by the behaviour of those around him. It is a source of wonder to many that Joe Cocker has survived the rigours of his rock and roll journey, and this survival against the odds is the crucial theme of With A Little Help From My Friends. Few rock biographies are as honest and revealing. It is the definitive account of an extraordinary career, an extraordinary singer and an extraordinary life. Illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs from every stage of Joe Cocker's career and including a comprehensive discography.
About the Author
JP Bean lives in Sheffield, Joe Cocker's home town and has interviewed Joe Cocker in Britain, Europe and the USA. He has previously published 'The Sheffield Gang Wars' which has been in continuous print for twenty-one years, "Over The Wall - The Master Jailbreakers" and most recently "Bendigo, The Bare Knuckle Champion Of England" which The Sunday Times said was a 'must-read'.
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