Joe Cocker Sings “With A Little Help From My Friends,” Live in 2013 and At Woodstock in 1969

Today as we say good­bye to British singer Joe Cock­er, who died at 70 after a strug­gle with lung can­cer, we’ll remem­ber him most for that 1969 Wood­stock per­for­mance of The Bea­t­les’ “With a Lit­tle Help From My Friends.” It was with­out a doubt a career-defin­ing moment. He nev­er stopped per­form­ing the song in his inim­itably gruff style, his raspy voice part­ly a prod­uct of too many cig­a­rettes and some pret­ty hard liv­ing over the decades. Known also for his air gui­tar pro­fi­cien­cy, Cock­er suc­cess­ful­ly cov­ered oth­er famous bands like Traf­fic and The Box Tops, and made many songs—like Bil­ly Preston’s “You Are So Beau­ti­ful to Me”—unique­ly his.

But yes, it’s that 1969 debut album, also titled With a Lit­tle Help from My Friends, with its mix of orig­i­nals and big-name cov­ers from The Bea­t­les and Bob Dylan, that first brought us the Joe Cock­er we fond­ly pay trib­ute to this hol­i­day week. I over­heard some­one describe Cock­er as the only per­son who could do The Bea­t­les bet­ter than they could, which is going a bit too far. But he may be the only artist whose cov­ers of the band are as well-known and well-loved as their orig­i­nals. Paul McCart­ney, who will lead memo­ri­als this week with Ringo Starr, said of Cocker’s “A Lit­tle Help,” “it was just mind-blow­ing, [he] total­ly turned the song into a soul anthem and I was for­ev­er grate­ful to him for doing that.” Indeed. At the top of the post, see Cock­er and band above play “With a Lit­tle Help” in Cologne, Ger­many in 2013, and just above, watch again that grip­ping Wood­stock per­for­mance.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jimi Hen­drix at Wood­stock: The Com­plete Per­for­mance in Video & Audio (1969)

Dick Cavett’s Epic Wood­stock Fes­ti­val Show (August, 1969)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness