January 22nd – The film of possibly one of the very best live
albums ever recorded, ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ (MD&EM) opened in London
today in 1971; the visual record of the Joe Cocker and pick-up band album that
caused so much trauma for band members and tour crew alike. Fuelled by
substances both illicit and legal (there was talk they didn't need a plane to
fly from gig to gig) for me at least, it became the
standard by which I judged all future live recordings. Why? Because the vinyl
release was given over to the public warts-and-all, something that, in this
CD/Download, everything-is-perfect age, is unheard of.
Believe me, far from being proof of
sloppy recording technique or poor musicianship, recordings containing mistakes
made by the band in live situations are your doorway into the heart of their
performance; really. I’m not talking about a shit show full of crap playing all
overdosing on ego, I’m talking about the odd dropped note, missed drum beat,
out of tune harmony, flash of unintentional feedback; the odd glitch that
suddenly makes the performer ‘human’. Something that is anathema to publicists,
agents and managers, that the 'talent' become one of us, fallible, open to
misjudgement, self-mismanagement and sudden inability. There's no shame in it,
y’ know. In most cases, these mistakes are just fatigue faults and concentration
lapses...but I'll give you, in the case of the MD&EM gigs, other causes may
have been responsible too. That’s where the stumbling block is really between
performer and backers, when the over enhancement of so-called performance
enhancing substances is shrugged off by the folk who are making the money.
Pink Floyd’s album, ‘The Wall’, and
the ‘Comfortably Numb’ track portrayal in the movie is very close to the
truth–back to this in a bit–where the bank (aka talent) is coerced into a
continuation of the same old same old by the bankers (aka agent, manager,
publicist, promoter). That kind of thinking was certainly much in evidence on
the MD&EM tour, when the money-men demanded Mr. Cocker fulfil his
contractual obligation to them, even in his advanced state of pre-tour
exhaustion and known level of substance help. Not too big a jump to guess the
tour just ramped up his alcohol and drug problems to what they later became;
(cut to ‘The Cow Sheds’ at Stafford where I and about 150 other people saw a
very drunk Cocker–post MD&EM tour–give a storming show; absolutely
peerless. There he was still flogging the circuit even then after all that
fame…my God but the music business is a shitty business at times…the waste, the
wasting, the wasters, the wastrels).
I remember doing a gig at the Cofton
Country Club, just outside Brum back in the late 60’s. I can’t remember the
headline band’s name (we were supporting…again, but I know they were a top-line
act, American) what I do remember is the drummer taking his ‘daily vitamin
dose’ in our shared dressing room with the help of the band’s tour manager and
then being helped on and off the tour bus and on and off his drum stool by the
other band members. ‘Not long for this world.’ we all thought at the time and
not a great advertisement for the ‘Joe Cocker School of Touring’ either.
With that as a foundation for this
chat (didn't Clapton, when asked the question, “Do drugs make you play better?”
reply, “No, they just make you think you do”?) and I guess it sounds callous to
think the sacrifice of our heroes is only there for our self gratification;
certainly would be true in Roman times but in 2014...? Callous? I beg to
differ. The path people choose to tread is not defined by the map-maker. In
whatever condition Joe Cocker and the members of ‘Mad Dog’s and Englishmen’ arrived
at the Filmore East (and put onto vinyl and thence into my musical siding in
1970) they gave the recording engineers their audacity, the show its
creativity, the performers their humanity…and me the feeling in my breast,
particularly when I hear their medley ‘I’ll Drown in My Own Tears’, its
sensibility. For that I’ll always be grateful.
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