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Reviews
Joe Cocker: Mad Dog with Soul (2017)
Pure Soul
As a singer Joe Cocker was one of the purest, most natural talents of the past fifty-plus years. At his best he often so fully occupied the performance that he was truly somewhere else, a place where he was unavailable for anything else. By all accounts Joe Cocker was a humble and sweet-natured man with little ego to either drive him forward, nor to shield him from what was to come. He entered the American musical scene in an overcrowded rocket made of glass, at a time perfectly primed for his talents, yet tangled with vices that would scar him forever and often lay him low. He alternately disappeared below the waves and skipped beautifully above them for the remainder of his life, never entirely losing that mammoth natural gift of a voice, the fire that he could muster for a performance. Aided greatly by his wife and others, Mr. Cocker had some often good, though never trouble free years in the latter part of his life. That voice and those performances will continue to outshine the bad forever.
John Mellencamp: Plain Spoken Live from The Chicago Theatre (2018)
Well Worth Any Frustrations With The Voiceover
John Mellencamp has carried the torch for those of us who ever loved Rock, Roots and the like, and for artists who weren't afraid to venture into other genres and do that well, whether success followed them to those places or not. The toll of cigarettes and age have put a ragged edge on Mellencamp's voice; His artistic vision and ability to write, to produce meaningful and moving music, to tell great stories -is undimmed.
Mellencamp has always stopped the car and invited us in for ride. He's been one of our foremost chroniclers of American life, from the youthful exuberance of the early Eighties, until today, when age takes its toll as we're looking in the rearview mirror at our past and the former glory days of Rock. That ride has always been worth the time, has always informed us about our lives, has always affirmed what we've loved, and helped us cope with what has been lost.
Others have noted with fairness how the voiceover often distracts from the performance and the stories told at the show. In some sense it would be nice to have the option to click off the voiceover. The reality of that is that most probably never would have listened to what John had to say, which I found to be exceptionally rewarding, rewarding enough for multiple viewings. If the music weren't present, few would probably have bothered to watch. I'm guessing that John Mellencamp has never been averse to getting a bit under our skin and inspiring us to think and speak out.