The greatest singer of his generation, according to Bob Dylan
The growl and gristle of Bob Dylan became known as the voice of a generation. David Bowie famously described it as sounding like “sand and glue”, and more than a few others have remarked on its raw ruggedness. Dylan might not be what you’d call a classically excellent singer, but he does have character and soul and that counts for a lot. In an age where there was much to be said, his un-prettified pronouncement made you focus on the substance of the words for once.
And he backed the substance with plenty of spirit. As Robbie Robertson of The Band would opine when he embarked with Dylan on the infamous electric ‘Judas’ tour: “When I started playing with Bob, I didn’t know how so much vocal power could come out of this frail man. He was so thin. He was singing louder and stronger than James Brown”. That’s quite some praise. It was needed too—as he added: “We were in a battlefield on that tour, and you had to fight back.”
Although Dylan may well have amped up his vocal arsenal for that riotous musical excursion, there was one singer on the circuit that simply nobody could compete with. He served as an inspiration for Dylan to channel. As the ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ singer said himself when he was asked to name the greatest singer of his generation: “Oh, let me see, Joe Cocker, I suppose, Graham Nash can sing. Van Morrison’s fantastic and so is Stevie Wonder, but of all of them, Joe’s the greatest.”
The Sheffield singer had a voice that could stir honey into tea through the walls of a fortified bomb shelter. When performing live, he spasmed his way across the stage like a human jackhammer. His skittish hopping made it seem as though the force of his voice was causing contractions and the audience looking on were left with slicked-back hair and not a care to speak of.
If performance is about whisking folks away from the cares of the world, then Cocker left you engrossed to such an extent that you barely had cause to even wonder whether he was any good—although, unlike most performances, that seemed to be a simple unspoken certainty. He left you awed in a humble way.
Over the years, Cocker would lend his own unique rasping vocals to the work of Dylan many times over. At Woodstock 1969, the ‘Mad Dog’ singer performed a cover of ‘I Shall Be Released’ that left the swaying masses temporarily immobilised and when he joined the legendary Leon Russell, for the truly underrated Mad Dogs and Englishmen record, they stirred up a stunning rendition of ‘Girl From the North Country’ that could knock the socks off of Gandhi.
The most apposite link between the two gravel-voiced icons comes from the individuality of their styles. As Cocker once said: “I have one message for young musicians around the world: Stay true to your heart, believe in yourself, and work hard.”
Dylan’s prolific espousal of his own singular worldview throughout his prolific back catalogue seemed to define that exact same message. Together Cocker and Dylan represent the true expressive nature of counterculture as they turned the tables on convention and rattled the rafters as they did so.
Nobody in their right minds would’ve said they were fit for radio just a few years prior to their emergence, but they had to be heard. If Dylan lassoed his defining words from the ether, then lord knows where Cocker’s voice was fished from, but nobody has dabbled in such raw and emotive waters since.
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