Joe Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English rock, blues and soul singer and musician who came to popularity in the 1960’s. He was known for his gritty voice, spasmodic body movement in performance, and cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of the Beatles. Cocker’s cover of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends” reached number one in the UK in 1968. His 1974 cover of “You Are So Beautiful” reached number five in the US. Cocker was the recipient of several awards, including a 1983 Grammy Award for his US number one “Up Where We Belong”, a duet with Jennifer Warnes. Cocker was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest singers list. (More from Wikipedia)
After the Svelts disbanded, Alice de Buhr started yet another all-woman band called Wild Honey that June Millington and Jean Millington later joined; they eventually moved to Los Angeles. Wild Honey was on the brink of breaking up but made one last appearance at the L.A. nightclub the Troubadour. While there, they met Richard Perry, who arranged to have the band signed in 1969 to Reprise Records. After being signed, Wild Honey recruited keyboardist Nickey Barclay, who had played in Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” musical ensemble.
(October 2013)
In 1969, Mick Farren “liberated” the earliest large-scale rock concert in the U.K., the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival by encouraging the fences to be torn down. This concert – which took place the month after Woodstock (and with many of the same acts) – featured the Who, the Band, Free, Joe Cocker, and the Moody Blues. But the real excitement was caused by the inclusion on the bill of Bob Dylan, who had been little seen since his near-fatal motorcycle accident in July 1966. When Dylan took the stage, audience members included three of the Beatles, three of the Beatle wives, three of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Jane Fonda, Roger Vadim, Syd Barrett, and Elton John.
One of the main reasons for the location of the original Woodstock was to lure Bob Dylan out of hiding – the idea was to throw a huge party practically on his doorstep that surely he couldn’t resist attending. Woodstock is the name of the town where Dylan lived (and also members of the Band); the festival itself was in Bethel. But resist he did; Bob Dylan instead signed up to appear at the Isle of Wight Festival and set sail for England on August 15, 1969, the day that Woodstock opened.
