Année : Août 1974 Label : A&M Classements : The Billboard 200 : 11ème (1974) Singles : It's A Sin When You Love Somebody - The Billboard Hot 100 : 5ème (1975) You Are So Beautiful - The Billboard Hot 100 : 5ème (1975) Put Out The Light - The Billboard Hot 100 : 46ème (1974) 1. Put Out The Light (Daniel Moore) 2. I Can Stand A Little Rain (Jim Price) 3. I Get Mad (Joe Cocker, Jim Price) 4. Sing Me A Song (Henry McCullough) 5. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Jimmy Webb) 6. Don't Forget Me (Harry Nilsson) 7. You Are So Beautiful (Bruce Fisher, Billy Preston) 8. It's A Sin When You Love Somebody (Jimmy Webb) 9. Performance (Allen Toussaint) 10. Guilty (Randy Newman)

 

After almost a two year layoff, Joe Cocker is back with what may well be his most consistently excellent singing since his heyday nearly five years back and perhaps the most entertaining variety of songs he has ever come up with. The powerful, bluesy vocals of Cocker sound better than ever and he can still belt with the best, but he has also picked up the ability to control his vocals on the softer side. Moving through material from Daniel Moore, Jimmy Webb, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, producer Jim Price and Henry McCullough, Cocker is provided with what may be the finest selection of songs he's had, as well as some of the best instrumental backup he's ever enjoyed. While the softness of much of the set may seem foreign to solid Cocker fans, it only takes a listen or two to get used to the changes. A truly solid return effort. Best cuts: "Put Out The Light", "I Can Stand a Little Rain", "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", "You Are So Beautiful","Guilty". Billboard, 1974. If Jim Price were a producer worthy of the artist, or even of the artist's memory, he would have asked Jerry Lee Lewis to play piano instead of Nicky Hopkins. Not that Jerry Lee could replace Chris Stainton, who combined with Cocker last time to write more good hooks than all of Hollywood's finest coughed up for this make-work project. Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981. With I Can't Stand A Little Rain, Joe Cocker returned to interpreting songs instead of essaying his original songs. As usual, there are a couple of highlights, but a couple of awkward choices prevent the album from being as effective as Joe Cocker ! or Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

Joe Cocker's comeback album is not the disaster his recent debacle in L.A. (during which he was too drunk to perform) was. Whatever his difficulties as a live performer, on record Cocker is far from a lost cause. Admittedly he is not the singer he once was: His voice is ravaged almost beyond belief. But this is what makes I Can Stand a Little Rain so moving. It is a record about pain and decline which, to make its points, cruelly exposes and exploits Cocker's damaged condition.

One example of this is "You Are So Beautiful", a Billy Preston song which, at its end, demands that Cocker reach two high notes he doesn't have a prayer of hitting. He stretches, struggles, quavers and fails; his failure makes the track and the listener hurt, which is precisely the record's intended effect. This is no rave-up in the Mad Dogs and Englishmen manner -- the album aches. Far from being a rocker, I Can Stand a Little Rain is slow, moody, depressed and arranged, and "I Get Mad" literally sounds as if Cocker is vomiting. More typical of the album is the title track by producer/arranger Jim Price and Jimmy Webb's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". The first of these deals with Cocker's bid to return to the limelight and climaxes as Cocker groans, "And when I'm on my last go-round / I can stand another test." Webb's number is the best on the album, an extended metaphor which, if it originally referred to love, in this context has to do with success. Webb's bland piano and the lovely string arrangement are in jarring contrast to Cocker's tormented vocal, and the discrepancy between voice and arrangement further accentuates Cocker's alienation.

A note on the jacket, "Special Thanks to Joe Cocker", suggests that Cocker was out of it while the album was being recorded. Indeed at times he seems to have been propped up and plugged into Price's production. But the distance between his vocals and music simply dramatizes Cocker's plight, and the suffering in his voice is so intense that no setting could enhance or dilute it. Ken Emerson, Rolling Stone, 10/10/1974.

Joe Cocker va de nouveau enregistrer avec Denny Cordell. C’est Cordell qui enregistra les deux premiers 33 tours de Cocker ("With A Little Help From My Friends" et "Joe Cocker"), ainsi que certains titres de son dernier 30cm ("Something To Say"). "Le prochain album sera enregistré dès que Joe aura trouvé un arrangeur pour remplacer Chris Stainton", a déclaré Denny Cordell, qui a ajouté : "Le disque sera vraisemblablement réalisé aux Etats-Unis et non à Hérouville comme il en avait été un moment question". Maxipop Pop Music n°135 du 10 avril 1973

 

Basse : Clydie King, David McDaniels, Chuck Rainey, Chris Stewart Batterie : Ollie E. Brown, Jim Karstein, Jeff Porcaro, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie Choeurs : Merry Clayton, Cornell Dupree, Venetta Fields, Sherlie Matthews, Daniel Moore Guitare : Jay Graydon, Ralph Hammer, Henry McCullough, Ray Palmer Piano / Orgue : Nicky Hopkins, Randy Newman, Greg Mathieson, David Paich, Jim Price, Peggy Sanduig, Richard Tee, Jimmy Webb Saxophone : Jim Horn, Trevor Lawrence Trombone : Mayo Tiana Trompette : Stewart Blumberg, Steve Madaio Voix : Joe Cocker		Graphiste : Roland Young Ingénieurs : Marco Aglietti, Mario Aglietti, Kent Duncan, Rob Fraboni, Richard Heenan, John Jansen, L.L. Jansen, Nat Jeffrey, Ken Klinger, Carlton Lee, Joe Tuzen, Zak Zenor Photographe : Steve Vaughan Producteur : Jim Price