Larry interviews legendary rock and roll biographer Mark Bego about his new book 'Joe Cocker: With a LOT of Help from His Friends'

Larry Mendte interviews legendary rock and roll biographer Mark Bego about his new book 'Joe Cocker: With a LOT of Help from HIs Friends'

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is a podcast from dou worNow more of the WOOR Saturday Morning Show
and Larry Minty. Welcome back toSaturday Morning. He is one of the
greatest rock and roll voices of alltime. Incredible career, but a chaotic
and sad life, and it's detailedin a new book written by author Mark

(00:24):
Biego, who has written sixty eightbooks on rock and roll legends. His
new book is Joe Cocker, witha lot of help from his friends.
Mark Bigo, thank you so muchfor joining us. I was reading your
book this weekend and I loved it, by the way, but I,
oh, thank you. I couldn'thelp feeling sad for Joe Cocker. He

(00:48):
was an incredible talent, but asyou mentioned in the book, he was
also incredibly self destructive. He wasdepressed and he was easy to take advantage
of. Is that about some upYeah? It really, it really does.
Everyone I talked to who he workedwith and who knew him said he
was a sweet guy, but hisdrinking problems and his tobacco habitual tobacco use

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really led to his downfall. Hewas his own worst enemy. As I'm
reading the book, I couldn't helpthinking over and over again, what an
incredible movie this would make. Didanyone approach you? Well, yes,
funny you should ask. This isone of those books that right out of
the gate, I had it optionedfor film, and movie producer Lisa Saltzman

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is out shopping it at the moment, and I've done a screenplay, a
preliminary screenplay for it, and Ithink it's quite an inspirational story. I
mean, as we've already established,Joe was very self destructive, but at
the end of his life he wasable to pull it together, stop drinking,

(01:57):
stop smoking, and had a happyten years with his wife and then
unfortunately came down with lung cancer anddied. But it was it was basically
a product of his lifelong habits.We are talking with author Mark Beego,
whose latest book is Joe Cocker Witha Lot of Help from his Friends,
a biography of the Great Joe Cocker. Uh. The title is a takeoff

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with all the help of my friends, the Beatles song that Joe Cocker frankly
did better than the Beatles did.And I, by the way, did
the Beatles like his version? Well, you know, they really did.
They were blown away to hear thatthis song had become number one in England
and they invited him, he andhis producer Denny Cordell to Abbey Road Studios

(02:42):
where they were working on the AbbeyRoad album and they loved what he had
done with a little help from myfriends, And in fact, on the
spot, George Harrison offered him thesong Something and Paul McCartney offered him the
song you Came In through the Bet, she Came In through the Bathroom Window
and Would, both of which herecorded on his next album. So they
were lifelong fans of Joe's and thetitle A Lot of Help from his Friends

(03:07):
is so a theme which runs throughthe entire book. He was constantly bolstered
up by people who cared about himwhile he was going through these bouts of
depression and heroin addiction and alcoholism andwhat have you. Joe recorded an amazing
amount of music on many different labels, especially towards the end of his career.

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He would sign a record deal,piss off the record company, they'd
let him go and he'd go offand sign a new deal. And the
problem was that producers would show upin the studio. Jimmy Webb was one
of them. Alan Hussaint was oneof them, and they go, Oh,
my god, where's Joe. I'mso excited to work with him.

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Oh he's passed out over there underthe piano with a bottle of vodka.
You know. So he was verydifficult to work with. Talk about some
of the big moments in Joe Cocker'scareer, starting with the performance that introduced
him to the world. I believeWoodstock absolutely an amazing performance. I recommend

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everyone go on YouTube and look atit immediately, or get the Woodstock movie
or rented or downloaded. His performancewas just like unlike anything anyone had seen
in America. That emotional, emotionallyrendering version of that song, with little
help from my friends, really madethe Woodstock movie and showed him off as

(04:33):
a superstar, and it really positionedhim for that amazing tour he did the
next year with Leon Russell and RitaCoolidge and so many other people, Mad
Dogs and Englishmen, which became thesoundtrack album from the movie and the most
popular album of his entire career.Unfortunately, he wasn't happy with the result

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of it, and spent the nexttwo years after the tour on his parents'
sofa drinking and doing drugs and beingdisillusioned by the music business. But as
Rita Coolidge explained, she said tohim, listen, Joe, it's show
business. You can do the show, the show, you've got, you
nail the show. But the businesspart of it is a business. And

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that's what he never seemed to understand. But he was taking advantage of during
that tour, was he not?He got paid a pittance compared to everybody
else. Well the problem, yes, yes, you're absolutely right on that.
But he and Leon Russell ended upspending money like crazy. They had
a huge entourage of people to takearound and the cost of it. They

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were paying for communal dinners, aspecial concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma that Leon
Russell insisted upon, and lavish roomsand drugs and booze for everybody that was
on the tour, so the expensesbecame impos possible. His manager at the
time, d Anthony, tried toget him to rain in the expenses,

(06:04):
but it never quite happened. Now, he could have recouped the money had
he continued touring for those next twoyears, but he chose not to work
and not to record. He wentin the recording studio with a bunch of
rock and roll luminaries, including RingoStarr on the drums, and he just
wasn't inspired to record at all.The record company A and M Records was

(06:27):
so frustrated with him they ended updropping him from the label although he had
scored that huge success. Yeah,the people around him are like a who's
who of rock music. It isamazing all the names that come up in
the book. Again, we aretalking with author Mark Biego whose latest book
is Joe Cocker With a Lot ofLittle Help from his Friends, a biography

(06:48):
of the Great Joe Cocker. Oneof the greatest moments on Saturday Night Live,
according to me and others, iswhen John Belushi impersonated Joe Cocker right
on st age with him, andhe seemed to have his spastic style on
stage. Pat and you write thatCocker liked this. He absolutely nailed Cocker.

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And if you look at the lookon Joe Concker's face as Belushi starts
to imitate him next to him,dressed identically to him, it's kind of
like, what is going on here? And his friends were amazed that he
was not insulted by this, becauseit kind of made fun of his style
and it's you know, his spasticdelivery and in his weird choreography that he

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did and instead he was highly flatteredby it. And you know, we
spoke about the fact that this oughtto be a movie. What a shame
that young John Belushi isn't around toplay Joe Cocker in a movie that would
be perfect. I thought the samething, that would be great. Look,
I could talk with you all day, but we're out of time,
and let's end this as you endedthe book. Because near the end of

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his life he cleaned himself up,didn't he And he found love and he
found peace. He did, youknow. So it's a harrowing story the
middle of it where he's on selfdestruct mode, but at the end of
his story he did find redemption.And I think it makes for a brilliant
life story. Mark, Thank youso much. I love the book.
Can't wait for the movie. Thankyou so much. My pleasure. Mark

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Bigo, author of Joe Cocker.With a lot of help from his friends,
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