Joe Cocker - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1969-1971

I have to admit it's basically false advertising to call this some of Cocker's BBC sessions. There isn't a single song here that was actually done for the BBC! But, as I've said previously, I consider his career peak to be the years 1968 to 1971, and I wanted songs for the rest of that time, if I could find source material that was of equal sound quality to the BBC tracks that made up Volume 1. I feel I did that. 

The first five songs all come from concert performances. But these sound great, because they were taken from an official Joe Cocker box set called "The Long Voyage Home." The next three songs are unreleased, and come from French and German TV appearances, so they have excellent sound quality too. 

The last three songs don't sound quite as good as the rest, because they're from a concert bootleg, and probably an audience recording instead of a soundboard. But I think they're worthy of inclusion here, due to their unusual nature. After Cocker's notoriously wild "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" concert tour, which ended in early 1970, it seems he was mentally and physically exhausted. He didn't tour or release any new music (except for one single) until early 1972, so he kept a low profile for most of two years. One exception to that is he made a guest appearance at a Rita Coolidge concert, playing the three songs here. None of the songs were ever officially recorded and released by him. So they're worthy for that, plus their sound quality is still pretty good, though not great.

The song "Cry Me a River" had a major problem in that a TV announcer spoke over the soloing section in the middle of the song. Previously, I had cut this section out rather than have the announcer talking. But I used new sound editing program X-Minus to simply erase the talking, and keep the soloing.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Let It Be (Joe Cocker)
02 Feelin' Alright (Joe Cocker)
03 I Shall Be Released (Joe Cocker)
04 Something's Coming On (Joe Cocker)
05 Something (Joe Cocker)
06 The Letter (Joe Cocker)
07 Dear Landlord (Joe Cocker)
08 Cry Me a River [Edit] (Joe Cocker)
09 Horizontal Blues (Joe Cocker)
10 When This Battle Is Over (Joe Cocker & Rita Coolidge)
11 The Devastating Things Love Can Do to You (Joe Cocker)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847540/JoeCock_1969-1971_BBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo was taken at a concert at the Fillmore East in New York City, in March 1971.