Sheffield’s finest: When Joe Cocker became a babysitter for Jarvis Cocker in 1964
Rock stars aren’t often suited to the world of the ordinary; it is difficult, for instance, to envision a parallel universe in which Mick Jagger is a ticket inspector, or where Iggy Pop is pursuing a career in law. Nevertheless, during the early 1960s, Joe Cocker was routinely employed as a babysitter for a young lad in Sheffield by the name of Jarvis.
Despite the shared surname of Joe and Jarvis Cocker, along with the fact that – at different times – they defined the musical output of South Yorkshire, there is no family relation between the two songwriters.
Nevertheless, during the early part of the 1960s, when Jarvis, born 1963, was still in his infancy, having not yet set his sights on being the driving force behind one of the greatest bands of the 20th century, Joe Cocker was a regular caller at the household, and a close family friend of Jarvis’ mother, Christine.
At that time, of course, Cocker was still in the early days of his music career, and it wouldn’t be until 1969 that he released his masterpiece of a debut album, With A Little Help From My Friends. In fact, his early career went by an entirely different name, with Cocker re-christening himself Vance Arnold and performing various rock ‘n’ roll hits across the many pubs of the Steel City.
Seemingly, being a pub performer left Cocker with a lot of spare time, some of which was used to help out at the other Cocker household, including the installation of a fireplace. Perhaps more notably, though, the budding rockstar was drafted in as a babysitter for the young Jarvis Cocker on multiple occasions throughout the future Pulp frontman’s childhood.
Whether or not Joe Cocker sang gritty lullabies to Jarvis, or whether any of the musical ambition that must have been exuding from him at the time passed itself down to the Britpop-era hero, is ultimately up for interpretation. It is worth noting, however, that the babysitting would have likely occurred around 1964, when Cocker scored a deal with Decca and released his first proper recordings.
By the time that his recording career began to take off, creating era-defining records like that 1969 debut, Cocker chose to leave Sheffield entirely, eventually moving into Jane Fonda’s Colorado ranch in 1978 – incidentally, the year that Jarvis Cocker formed the earliest incarnation of Pulp, at his local secondary school.
Inevitably, due to the pair being two of the greatest musicians to ever arise from Sheffield, and sharing a surname, the idea of Cocker babysitting the younger Cocker is easy to write off as an urban myth or a music press concoction.
It is worth remembering, however, that this is Jarvis Cocker we’re talking about; unbelievable occurrences seem to be part and parcel of everyday life for the frontman. This is, lest we forget, the man who: Mooned Michael Jackson on live television, refused The Teletubbies permission to cover one of his songs, and played an animated rat in 2022’s The House. Within that context, the idea that Jarvis was babysat by a pre-fame Joe Cocker is little more than a footnote.
