Standing at the side of the Eastown stage talking to Cocker choirmember Nicol Blay, Joe Cocker looked as unprepossessing as he ever did, offstage. Still the same tie-dyed sweatshirt, still the same paisleycarpet boots; still the same amazing voice and still the same diffidence. “Do you think people will dig it?”, he asked softly.

Considering what he’d just managed to pull off at a rehearsal, the questin was a bit superfluous. Sure, we’ve all seen big bands before, the Bee Gees toured with a forty piece orchestra once; but never before has there been a twenty-piece rock and roll band. Twenty people doesn’t seem staggering until you’ve seen them all at once, standing on a stage where you’re used to seeing half a dozen at most.

The band didn’t really sound that much different when Ric and Deday and I walked into the Eastown Theatre that afternoon. We were aware that the new group was supposed to be good — but for me,. at least, the new band was scheduled to be a super-letdown. After all, the Grease Band was designed to fit Cocker perfectly and, on stage and on record, its execution was nearly faultless.

Upstairs in the office we talked to Alex King, a tour manager for Dee Anthony’s Bandana Productions (Bandana also handles Savoy Brown, Ten Years After and the MC5, among others). King started to give us some idea of what was going down and the energy level picked up a tad. (He was only one of a crew of four, including Dee Anthony himself, that Bandana had sent on the tour.)

There were only a couple of things to ask King; why had he asked to see us (obscure) and why had Cocker decided to split with the Grease Band (more so). The Greasers, it seems, couldn’t relate to enlarging the band — somethin’ like that.

King did mention that Chris wasn’t playing piano so much this time ’round and that there was a new piano player then he let the subject drop. No names were mentioned, no information forthcoming.

Seigel set up shop in the balcony, taking pictures with his telephoto; I went up for a while too, while Deday split for downstairs. Stopped by and said hello to the Magic Veil Lightshow chicks, Gail flipping out about “Wesley” West, of Mountain who was appearing that night. Seems they have a no-light-showrider in their contract. Anyway, “Wesley”, as she continued to refer to him, had apparently given the girls a hard time.

Cocker’s rehearsals were and are as much a musical experience as seeing one of his concerts. I saw him rehearse in August with the Grease Band, (they were busy working out an arrangement for “Darlin’ Be Home Soon”, a total treat) and was thoroughly blown back by it all. So when the opportunity of seeing the new band in rehearsal presented itself, it was seized with no little excitement. Even so, we’d almost missed it, what with staying up all paper out and all. We made it over, though — skidding through rush hour traffic on the x-way, blasted out of our skulls.

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Anyway, things were getting pretty heavy up on stage and I thought to go downstairs. The closer 1 got to the stage, the more it became apparent that there were one fuck of a lot of people up there.

To begin with there were two keyboards, two drummers (plus a conga player) a couple of guitars, bass and a whole hell of a lot of people scurrying about on stage, talking to each other, moving things and singing along with Cocker. The band moved into “Loving You Has Made My Life Sweeter Than Ever” and I walked over to where Deday was standing with that look in his eyes, watch things.

A bunch of chicks were crawling about in the orchestra pit taking pictures of the band, primarily Joe, while a dozen people from Stan Andrews sound company and the Cocker crew were setting up an Apollo 7-like device in the back to control the sound. There were a dozen other people hanging around; Cocker had the same equipment man on the other times we’d seen him, there were three or four people with the blue Bandana blazer on, promo men galore from the record company and the usual assortment of groupies and gawkers.

It was all incredible, but the most incredible of all was the piano player; Chris Stainton, the sole surviving member of the Grease Band, was still sitting behind the organ but the pianist was nothing short of incredible. Long silver and black striped hair fell down below his shoulders, enmeshed in his blue Holy Trinity basketball jersey (number 13) and his gold sweatshirt.

I kind of looked at Deday and said, “If that’s Leon Russell, this is perfect. And it sure looks like him.”And went looking for someone to deny it a moment later, not sure whether or not I wanted that to be true.

I was unsure because of the very stature of Russell; people seem to have only found out about him recently but he’s been around a hell of a long time. He did the Delaney and Bonnie album on Elektra with them, produced “This Diamond Ring” and, maybe, played piano for the Ronettes. At any rate, his talent is massive and to see him on stage would be a rush of the first order.

So moving around, still with one eye on the stage, I bumped into Alex King again. Is that Leon Russell? He laughed and nodded. And it was perfect, perfect and dangerous and a really incredible musical experience.

Seeing the Rolling Stones had a certain mystique; musically, I have no idea of how they were, I was simply soaking up the aura about Jagger / Richards./ Watts / Wyman / Taylor. But this began and ended with music. There’s no real comparison, yet both reflected people obviously best at wh^t they are doing and both were tremendously exciting to be around.

And every time you looked up at the stage, it’d be a little bit better. Finally, the absolute culmination, even in extra-musical terms — a black and white patched dog walked across the stage. There, in the midst of this solid mass of sound, walked this tiny dog. Which is really what this band was all about.

Talking to Denny Cordell, a.few minutes later, confirmed it all. Denny is the producer of Cocker, Leon Russell’s new album, Procul Harum and the Move, among others. He’s just moved to the West Coast, from England, as has Joe, where he’s set up Shelter Records whose first release is the Leon Russell album, as fine a piece of music as you’re liable to get your teeth into. He also brought his wife and three kids along on the tour, which gives you some kind of idea where the whole organization is at. In Cordell’s own words, “The whole purpose is to provide shelter fc& the artist”.

A Monstrous Mad dog, An Exquisite Englishman And Pocahontas

The usual things about Joe Cocker will always impress everyone, at first. His contortions on stage; his raycharles, wrenched-fromthe-bowels-of-the-universe voice, his deceptive stature. But this group, while shaped by and based on Cocker’s style, is above and beyond all that.

To begin with, there’s Leon Russell. If you’ve never heard Russell’s first album, Look Inside by the Asylum Choir, (which was done by Leon in conjunction with Marc Benno), or his newest (Leon Russell on Shelter) about all that can be done is recommend them to you. His genius is a lot like that of Nicky Hopkins or, more aptly, Bob Dylan. He’s a keyboard wizard like Hopkins and, like Dylan, he has an incredible, if not always pleasant, singing style that’s all his own as well as being one of the killer songwriters in rock and roll. (“Delta Lady”, if nothing else, should bear that out.) And the Asylum Choir and Delaney and Bonnie records should bear out his talent as a producer.

Chris Stainton is one of the most unsung of the English rock and roll pantheon. His temperment is seemingly milder than Russell’s and, while his style fits Cocker’s much more tightly, possibly because they’ve worked with each other longer, Cordell suggested that perhaps this was the reason Leon was so effective with the two. “Leon’s just a monster,” Denny noted, “A monstrous genius mad dog. He’s just the other half of what Cocker kind of needs. Cause when your style tends to be that heavy, you really need someone to kick you up the ass all the time. Push you to the boundaries. And Leon does that ”

Rita Coolidge is probably the most interesting other person in the band. Her voice is a banshee wail that doesn’t quit, to which her work with the Stones and Delaney and Bonnie attests. And her visual aspect is easily as pleasing. Tall and kind of gangly, it comes off young and Daisy Mae rather than any of the other things it might. Cordell may have another hit on his hands if she’s really going to do an album with Denny as the producer. (Or Leon, who is Cordell’s partner in Shelter.) But Cordell hedged a bit with plans for anything with her, since she’s not signed to him but to David Anderle, the former head of West Coast operations for Elektra Recrods and the discoverer (for Elektra) of Delaney and Bonnie.

Finally, their sound melds into the one thing that Cocker is best at, almost definitively so .. the best sense of material in the rock and roll world. The new set runs through a dozen songs and medleys. Almost all of them work, some on a higher level than others of course, but they all are of intrinsic value. One of the constant factors of this group, like The Band, is their taste; it’s a given with Cocker by now that he has an exquisite talent for finding material that suits his style and vice versa. And that alone makes it all a trip.

“We were just trying to get together a five piece group. By the time we were done it got this large”, Cordell explained. Then he added, as though a bit awed by it himself, “And it worked.”

“I think everybody down there has got confidence in what they’re doing. Joe’s kind of a mark to come up to”, he went on, “so it’s kept at a very highly intense level. Leon Russell’s just a monster. And he just whipped that band!”

They were moving into the part of the set where Cocker sings with Bobby Jones. Things weren’t working out quite right and Leon decided it was time for a conference. Which was immediately assembled around his piano, twenty strong and a few roadies and Canina, the dog we talked about earlier (who sat on the piano and dug it all).

Canina belongs to Pamela Poland, one of the choir members, but more than that, she belongs to the tour; she symbolizes and epitomizes what it’s all about. It’s no coincidence that these people have played where they’ve played. Drummers Jim Gordon and Jim Keltner were in Delaney and Bonnie’s band, the Friends, as were hornmen Bobby Keys and Jim Price, bassist Carl Radle and vocalist Rita Coolidge. (So, once in a while, was Leon) One of the other drummers, Chuck Blackwell, is with Taj Mahal’s group and the fourth, Sandy Kornikoff used to play on Bob Dylan sessions. The significance is that these are all ensemble groups, just as these musicians are that special sort, the ensemble performer. Not jammin’ groups, it’s not that selfconscious, not crushed velvet pants and satin shirts and all; just, like Delaney and Bonnie used to say, “Friends”.

Nicol Barclay, another of the choir members, is with a group called “Fanny” (which will have its first album, and tour, shortly). As Cocker walked away after practice sheremembered the first time she heard “With A Little Help”. “I was living back East and I was driving down this expressway one day when “A Little Help” came over the radio. I was sure it was an American spade or something, you know? Then, when I found out he was white, it just flipped me out. And a couple of weeks later 1 was on the West Coast, getting my own group together.”

That’s kind of how the tour got together anyway. Cordell explained, “He (Cocker) quit the Grease Band and in the meantime his agents had lined up this tour. He didn’t have a band,. Then everybody who’s on Shelter Records, like Leon Russell, and all those people, Chris Stainton, Bobby Keys, all said, “Well shit, we’ll help you out!”

“Leon was kind of the instigator there. He’s one of those, what you might call ‘Lonesome Cowboys’. They all come from Tulsa (which is true of Russell, Keys, Price and Radle, at least) and they’re all friends of each other and so he was the main instigator in getting the band together. And then other people just volunteered their services.”

“We just started off doing rehearsals with about six people in Charlie Chaplin’s old indoor studio which is actually about three football pitches big, and as word got out about the rehearsals, it ended up with about three of four hundred people coming down every night. Every now and then someone would come forward and say, “I’d like to make it”. And we’d say, “Well, have a try”. And if they made it, they stayed.”

That’s how they ended up with all those drummers. Cordell again; “That came by pure coincidence, two drummers. We originally asked, the night we got it together we asked Chuck Blackwell, out of Taj Mahal’s group and he said “Yeah”. And then Keltner phoned up and said, “Listen,

I hear you’ve formed a new group” and you can’t say no to Keltner. So of course we said, come along. And then Jim Gordon, who makes about a hundred grand a year in studio work, said, “Listen, I hear you need a drummer”. And you can’t say no to him either.”

The rest of the band is equally amazing; the choir especially. Besides Rita Coolidge, who’s an Indian princess mindfuck of a woman, braids and all, and appears on Let It Bleed and the Elektra lp with Delaney and Bonnie, there’s Nicol Barclay, from Fanny, Donna Washburn, Donna Weiss, the Moore brothers, Dan and Matthew, Bobby Jones, Don Preston, who plays the best slide guitar this side of Johnny Winter, Pamela Poland, who possesses the superdog Canina and an incredible voice and Claudia Lannear, a Tina Turnerish, supertail black chick who used to be an Ikette.

The band and choir share one common member, Don Preston. Aside from all that though, they work together like the voices are one instrument, all of them swooping through Joe’s spastic gyrations like a greased butterfly.

By then it was time to split. Mountain was rehearsing but after what we’d been through even Leslie West would’ve been a let down. So we split, promising to return for the evening show.

Anticipation raged high back at the office, where we returned to speculate about whether the show would really be all that good. The consensus seemed to be that it really was; the startling fact was also revealed that Siegel had managed to take about 200 pictures of the band, which at his usual level of incompetence and our usual level of graphic nada, should mean that three will accompany this tale.

The rap with Cordell had included a few other sidelights which I assimilated as well as I could in the meantime. For one, it seems that Cocker is contracted to A&M for at least four more records. So he won’t be on Shelter here for another year or so at least. (In England, he’ll be on Island after August; until then he’ll be on Regal Zonophone, the label which Cordell used to own and recently sold to EMI.)

The really obvious tad of information we picked up was the story about the next album; recorded live the next weekend at the Fillmore East, of course. A kind of monument to a band that is planned to self-destruct. As Denny put it, “It’s gonna do ten weeks of the tour and then it’s bound to disintegrate ’cause everybody here has things to do in their own right.” But he also said that, “I think Leon, Chris and Joe will also do an album. Leon’s going to go off on his own and I should think Chris will go with Leon, for that period.”

“Leon and Chris are both Aries, they both have a great kind of fiery respect for each other. They just get it on incredibly. Absolutely great. You just set ’em down and Chris, ‘You play piano’ and Leon would play guitar or Chris would play organ and Leon piano.

“Leon and Chris were the dominant instrumentalists in the last album and Joe by the way he sings and the way he conducts, sets up his own things. It finds it’s level, it will always — like I think any group behind Jagger will end up sounding like the Rolling Stones.”

And finally he added that; “They’re the most incredible band I’ve ever seen.” One could hardly help but agree.

Cordell also added that there would be a movie of the tour, to be released as a feature. “It’ll be called ‘Mad Dogs & Englishmen’, because I think that the conception of this tour cannot be gotten together quite the same again.

Ill

Dee Anthony: John Sinclair’s Replacement

Before we go any farther I suppose we ought to describe the now historic meeting between Dee Anthony and the author. I’d seen Anthony that afternoon, wasn’t sure that it was him but did know that if it uy/.v/?'fD.ee Anthony it sure should have been. For that matter, I really don’t know that it was him I talked to, though he sure as hell knew a hell of a lot about Joe Cocker and Bandana Productions if he wasn’t.

So anyway, I walked up to this silver-haired kind of mod looking portly gentleman, about the same size as myself (I’m a massive 5’6”), who was Wearing a huge black and white button that read Cocker Power and said, in my best Midwestern-hippie-teenage manner, “Are you with Dee Anthony?” And of course he said, “Yes, I’m Dee Anthony” and we launched into a long rap about this and that and the other thing, my primary impression being that Anthony’s an innocentenough guy for a mercenary in the rock and roll wars. But, can he really replace John Sinclair as the MC5’s manager??? That thought is upsetting enough. Let it be for now.

Anyway, he and I talked about how Joe Cocker was my favorite singer of the moment and how he might have assumed Otis Redding’s mantle as premiere r ’n’ b vocalist (which is the same conversation I had with Nicol Barclay that afternoon, only she agreed a bit more vehemently, if I remember right). And he was telling me about how Joe was travelingin not one but two airplanes; there was this DC-3 for the band and people like himself (though he was only out for the weekend; being so busy and all. “I have five people on this tour”, he told me proudly. His five people are Alex King, “tour managers”, a step higher up than road managers, King explained to me, who are press liasons and set up things for the Bandana groups, all of which are groovers like the Savoy Brown and Ten Years After and our very own MC5. Gaagh!) and there was a Martin for the others. The roadies and equipment and such. The big one, the DC-3, was under the name “Cocker Power” and the little one was called “Little Cocker”, which may’ve explained his button because he probably needed it to get on the plane just like you have to have a “Rolling Stones” button to get backstage at the Stones’ concert.

He also told me how they were renting these Greyhound buses to take the group around on the tour, in whichever cities they go to and how this was their first appearance live and how I should’ve been at the first show.

But I didn’t think so, since they cleaned out the audience afterwards which upset people mightily since that don’t happen Detroit, ever, and about half of them stayed. He did mention that Joe wouldn’t let that happen tomorrow night, that he would only do one show.

More than that, he told me that Time and Life were going to do cover stories on Joe and that Denny had his kids with him and that Pamela Poland had her dog Canina with her. Everybody brought up Canina, like I said she was the symbol of the tour and all, you know.

And then I went out to seexthe show, which was all groovy and everything but just remember that Dee Anthony is fat and has processed' hair (styled, I supposed they call it) and that he manages the MC5 and that John Sinclair used to and that John Sinclair is in jail. For ten years for having two joints. And that neither you or I may know what that tells us but we can guess.

IV

Learn in’ To Live Together

The minute they walked out the atmosphere in the ballroom changed. I mean here was Leon Russell looking absolutely outrageous in his red white and blue Mick Jagger top hat and his red, white and blue striped pants and blue Holy Trinity jersey over a gold sweatshirt (the reverse of the afternoon’s attire) and a skin vest over it all and his black and gold striped hair. And Joe Cocker, tie-dyed and beer bellied, with the choir looking like they wanted the robes they had to leave behind (because there wasn’t time to get them out of the cleaners) (really) and two drummers and a conga player and Chris Stainton hidden way in the back switching from piano to organ when necessary and Carl Radle looks like he lives in the Badlands with a capital BAD, like a . 1970 Jesse James with a lowslung bass guitar. I mean, it was Somethin’ ELSE.

The opening tune was ’’Honky Tonk Woman”, a shade blacker than the Stones, Leon playing guitar which he is almost as good at as piano. Then smash, bang into a Cocker trademark number, ’’Let’s Go Get Stoned” and you know it’s not Ray Charles whiskey he’s discussing. Dee Anthony himself goving stage directions.

’’She Came In Though The Bathroom Window” was probably \vritten consciously or not, for Joe Cocker and it fits the end of ’’Stoned” even better than it fits the end of ’’Lawdy Miss Clawdy” on the Joe Cocker album. Joe Cocker, the conductor and controller of a twenty peice band, has had to douse a few of the pyrotechnics but he still sings better than anybody you’re liable to see this weekend.

Leon leaps behind the piano for ’’Bird on the Wire”, Chris jumps behind the organ, not wasting a second. It seems a bit draggy on the instrumental end though, but the choir is really ace. It’s too bad, but Cocker just can’t get the release here that he does elsewhere. He seems to be holding a little bit back on this number. From there on in, though, everything’s an up.

’’Cry Me A River” is a simply tremendous arrangement; it’s strange to find songs that you wouldn’t have thought anyone could resurrect from the garbage heap of mediocrity in Cocker’s set, as vital and ballsy as any of the others. Maybe more so.

Rita Coolidge stepped out, looking ice-cool, for a song that I didn’t take down the name of, which she did magnificently. Her hair fell down the middle of her back in a pair of pocohantas braids while Denny Cordell stood in back and watched and smiled and ran the mixer and Canina ran about on stage. People seemed to smile a lot; that just might sum up the whole set.

The audience wasn’t too happy, though. Cocker hadn’t done one hit yet, at least not any of his hits and they seemed upset, calling out for him to do ’’Dear Landlord”, ’’Delta Lady” or ”A Little Help From My Friends”. ’’We’re trying to do 'everyone’s favorites”, Joe remarked to the crowd and they seemed to dig him. Or at least the ethos, cauSe on the next number they flipped out and stamped their feet and clapped their hands and shit.

The tune was ’’Space Captain”, done at least 92 times better than the single. If Leon Russell didn’t write this tune (I’ve not seen the record, only heard it) somebody’s already copping his style. It started off with Joe and Leon alone, singing about how ’’We’re just learnin’ to live together Til we die”. Then the choir jets in...WHEW!!!

For ’’Feelin’ Alright”, Leon shucked His vest and switched to guitar, while Chris played piano. The audience just sort of clapped along; this is Joe’s trademark song with them But it’s transformed by the choir so that it’s not a bit stale or stylized. And, surprise surprise, Joe Cocker digs his band; almost as much as a whole lot of them, one suspects, idolize him. With good reason on both ends.

Now into the most incredible number of the night. A supermedley. I’ve been waiting for Cocker to try Otis Redding material; it’s obvious that their styles are much removed from each other if only racially but Joe’s singing makes you want to hear him try to capture Redding . It would’ve been groovy even if he’d mangled it the way he should’ve (given the fact that he’s Caucasion) But it was the absolute mindfuck of the set.

It was at the tail end of a medley, starting out with ’’Drown In My Own Tears”, which is a Cocker song from the word go and then into the old Sam and Dave Smash, ’’When Something Is Wrong With My Baby” for the bulk of it, Joe singing along with Bobby Jones from the choir and then into the real heartstopper, ”I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”. I really hate to under/ over state all in the same sentence but I can only call it the best of the best by the best . Immaculately conceived and executed. And putting it together in a medley is the perfect way to get away with an Otis song since you know that no one else cna ever be Otis.

Cocker was drenched with sweat by this time so out came Don Preston with his axe; a "boogie man”, Joe called him and that he was. He plaued Johnny Winter slide riffs forever, jamming out "Killing Floor” and imitating B.B. vocals even better than Johnny. It’s a tremendous, killer, rock-out high energy screamer. Thrill-a-minute rock and roll carnival of a show.

Cocker’s got his second wind now so here we go again. Another medley, this time "I’ve Been Abused” with "Sticks and Stones”, Chris playing piano while Leon wrenched everything out of his guitar. Cocker likes what he’s doing much more than the last time he went around with the Grease Band; it’s a lot tighter and at the same time freer than the Grease Band. And this band had only been playing together for three weeks at the most and some of them didn’t join until a week before that night.

Though Paul McCartney may (or may not) have intened ’’Bathroom Window” for Cocker, it’s safe to assume that George Harrison didn’t suspect that the song would fit Joe as excellently as it does. This one has more magic. Then they’re into "The Weight”, the way you never heard that song before. All of his vocal emphases are unexpected, the stops aren’t where you’d put ’em and neither are the accents but it works perfectly. Cocker works it out with the choir. If Jagger toys with his audience. Joe just rips them apart and assaults them as carnally and virilely as possible. Nothing unisex about Joe Cocker; he’s really masculine up there and that in itself is about to become totally original, I;m afraid.

The ending is quick; they run through the rest of the "hits”, ”A Little Help From My Friends” in a pretty much undistinguished rendition and "Delta Lady”. The primary change on "Delta Lady” is the addition of horns. Everybody got up and danced while Chris did his somewhat unusual riff of playing guitar and organ at the same time. Or at least on the same tune.

In between Claudia Lannear, the spade chick, ex-Ikette, who has an incredible gospel voice, did "Let It Be”. Not quite up to either the Beatles or Aretha, because she’s neither a choirboy or a preacher’s daughter; but it is very, very, very good while remaining very, very, very loose. She has a most remarkable voice.

Then they went into ’’People Try” and Finally ’’The Letter”, a heavy version of the old Box Tops tune which is the other side of the new 45. And just kind of jammed to a close; I walked over to Denny Cordell and he was still mixing the sound and looking as pleased a $ it’s possible to look and I kind of thought that damn, it sure was fine, yes, it sure was fine and I sure wished that I could do that. That’s what it’s all about.