In the Spring of 2009, as Simon Cowell was picking his jaw up from the floor, it became clear that the fledgling “Got Talent” franchise was onto something. It started, innocently enough, when a kind of frumpy, kind of adorable, middle-age woman ambled onstage and, after one heck of a dramatic pause, launched into “I Dreamed a Dream.” It was an undeniably beautiful rendition, made infinitely more jaw-dropping by its apparent unexpectedness. Within moments of its airing, Susan Boyle became an international sensation. And while she ended up as the competition’s runner up, she was the show’s indisputable breakout star. Her first two albums were platinum sellers. She toured the world over. She was the heartwarming story that 2009 could not get enough of. But the underside of her massive success — the bump it provided to “Britain’s Got Talent” — was something more complicated. It became a habit that turned into an addiction.

Boyle was the first of a string of neuro-divergent contestants who made audiences and judges gasp at the idea of THAT person singing like THAT. This past year, Lavender Dacangelo, who is blind and autistic, floored Simon, Howie, Heidi and Terry with her stellar performance of of “Out Here on My Own” from “Fame.” Like Boyle, she made it to the show’s finals. But, also like Boyle, she fell just short. Kodi Lee, however, won the whole gosh darn thing. On May 18, 2019, the then twenty-three year old, blind, autistic and adrenal-compromised contestant walked onstage for his audition, aided by a cane and his mother’s arm. After introducing himself, he slowly, carefully made his way over to the grand piano, sat down, waited for a few seconds that seemed like a few hours, and brought down the house with his cover of Leon Russell’s “Song for You.” Exactly four months later, when the golden buzzer was pushed, he was crowned champion.

Over the last fifteen years, “Got Talent” has walked a razor’s edge between inspirational and exploitative. Their knack for finding neuro-divergent and disabled contestants, sharing their poignant backstories, pausing dramatically, hitting record, and capturing the audible gasps and inevitable tears, is as heartwarming as it is cringey. At times, it can feel like like a show about trainwrecks that turn out to be (double) rainbows. It’s wonderful in the moment, but afterwards you feel more than a little bit taken. You wonder whether the show’s unlikely hero is really the victim. And the more you consider it, the more complicated it becomes.

But, Simon Cowell didn’t invent this. Kodi Lee was not the first physically “different” person to wow us with his take on Leon Russell. That would have been Joe Cocker in 1969, with “Delta Lady.” Though, back then, Cocker wasn’t so different. In his mid-twenties, “The Sheffield Soul Shouter” was feral and bohemian, with a coat of grunge on his tie dyed shirts. His air guitar and air drumming gave the impression of a man touched by the music rather than someone who was physically or mentally different. But the Joe Cocker that John Belushi played on “SNL” in 1976 — the man who’d just barely survived the “Mad Dogs & Englishman” Tour — that Joe Cocker was the prototype for “Got Talent.” After Ray Charles and after Stevie Wonder, Joe Cocker was the artist who made us wonder how THAT guy could sing like THAT.

That Joe Cocker — at least the way Belushi played it — was apparently afflicted with some neurological disorder. It was a character that the comedian had been sketching since the early Seventies, when Cocker first became an international sensation. Back then, the caricature was more pronounced — the distance between reality and comedy more obvious. By 1976, however, when Cocker had bottomed out and was struggling to recover, the humor of the skit had curdled slightly. It survived on account of Belushi’s gusto and Cocker’s good humor. But for those who knew the whole story, it was more darkly funny than ha ha funny. And for those of us who were younger, and who knew nothing about the singer, we wondered what was wrong with Joe Cocker. Was he amazing or was he just different or was he completely broken?

The answer, of course, was “yes” — to all of those questions. Once upon a time, Joe Cocker was the most exciting singer in the U.K. Having cut his teeth with local bands and having forming The Grease Band in 1966, he broke out in 1968 with a cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends.” That single, which shot up to the top of the British charts, curried him favor with The Fab Four, who invited him to preview “Abbey Road” so that he would have first crack at the songs for cover versions — which he did. “Joe Cocker!,” his sophomore record, included two of those songs — “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” and “Something.” The album confirmed the singer’s status as the “male Janis Joplin” — an untamed singer capable of reinventing great material. Moreover, it cemented his relationship with a young songwriter and bandleader from Tulsa, Oklahoma named Leon Russell.

In the Spring of 1970, Cocker had a week to put together a band for a fifty day, fifty show tour of America. With The Grease Band back home in the U.K., he phoned Russell, who miraculously assembled the most overqualified, unrehearsed and unmanageable collection of musical talent in the history of Rock and Roll. The ensuing “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour became the stuff of legend. Shows were raucous — as sloppy as they were inspired. The band of dozens, under the direction of Russell, began to resemble a foundering cult. There was communal drinking, dancing, sex and lots and lots of drugs. There was jealousy and resentment and rage and hangovers that could only be cured by more drugs and more drinking and more sex. By the end of the tour, which Cocker resisted from the start and which he financed personally, the singer and his bandleader were barely speaking. Cocker secluded himself while Russell consumed everything and everyone. Seven weeks after it kicked off, Joe Cocker was despondent and addicted. His commercial peak was his personal torment.

In the years that followed, he was in a bad way. His self-titled third album sold poorly and his addictions deepened. He was in no shape to tour, but he needed to make money to pull himself out from the debt of his former extravagances. By 1974, he was far from the zeitgeist. He was another rock casualty — just like Janis Joplin, except with a fate much worse: Cocker had survived. Post-Mad Dogs Cocker is the one that John Belushi is channeling. He can still sing. But he’s broken. He’s flailing and falling until he falls.

The cover to “I Can Stand a Little Rain,” from 1974, captures the singer at his most afflicted. Simply a close up photo of Cocker, no shirt, unkempt and with the saddest eyes imaginable. It’s the picture of depression. It’s window into ten depressed tracks, including Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me” and Randy Newman’s “Guilty.” But tucked into side two is a ballad so simple, so achingly tender and so perfect for the year 1974, that — against all odds — it rescued Joe Cocker’s career. Released the same year as the Billy Preston original, Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful” features Nicky Hopkins on piano, Dave McDaniel on bass, with string arrangements courtesy of Jimmy Webb. There are no drums. No guitars. It’s a once in a lifetime showcase for a singer who was once a Soul belter, and then an R&B howler, but who, by 1974, sounded like a wounded dog begging to be put down.

For the next thirty years, Cocker would be defined more by “You Are So Beautiful” than by “Feeling Alright,” “Delta Lady” or the “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour. He signified the un-beautiful man with the un-beautiful voice that somehow made beautiful music. His interpretations grew less daring, more polite. In 1982, he scored one final hit with “Up Where We Belong,” a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack to “An Officer and a Gentleman.” But, otherwise, Cocker settled into a respectable, comfortable niche as a cover artist, distinguished by his tasteful song selection and singular voice. Every other year, he’d make an album, tour and pay the bills. He served to remind Boomers of the aftermath of Woodstock. But, also, he was sufficiently curious and compelling to make Gen X-ers ask, “Is that the guy who sings the theme to “The Wonder Years,”” and also, “What’s wrong with him?”

As for that second question, the answer was: “not so much.” It was an increasingly good life for Joe Cocker. He’d cleaned himself up. He enjoyed a steady income. He settled down, first in Santa Barbara, California, and then at “Mad Dog Ranch” in Colorado, where he lived and grew tomatoes with his wife, Pam Baker. In his forties and fifties, he appeared much older than his actual age. But his shape and visage kind of helped — contributing to his reputation as a grizzled Soul Man. His Eighties and Nineties albums — full of Dylan and Cohen and Newman songs — are uniformly well played and passionately sung. They never wowed critics. They never sold millions. But they sold well enough. And, more importantly, they keep the singer busy and solvent. Around the time of “Unchain My Heart,” Cocker had settled into sub-Winwood territory. His was music to be played by aging Yuppies on nice car stereos or as the soundtrack for expensive beer commercials. It was the musical equivalent of Miller Lite.

By the new millennium, though, Cocker was an old fifty-something. His body had suffered. His voice had deteriorated. We’d never hear that feral Joe Cocker again. His new stuff was “good enough” and, plus, there was no incentive for him to “go for it.” Better to take on lesser known compositions by great writers than to ever have a go at iconic hits or — heaven forbid — contemporary material. What did Joe Cocker have to gain by taking a big swing in the twenty-first century? After all, the last time he’d tried that — way back in 1970 — it had ended in disaster.

But then came Johnny Cash’s “American” records — a series of albums produced by Rick Rubin, featuring Cash revisiting older songs and, more importantly, daring new stuff. Over the course of several albums, The American Series included Cash and Rubin’s takes on Nine Inch Nails, Will Oldham, Nick Cave and U2. Their commercial and critical success came to represent the reinvention of a man in sunset. The limitations of Cash’s voice was the music’s greatest asset. The risk Cash had taken was not a “go for broke” so much as it was a “strip it down.” It worked — better than anyone could have imagined. And it awoke a spirit that had been dormant within Joe Cocker for decades.

Released in 2004, “Heart and Soul” is Cocker’s response to Cash and Rubin. Maybe not entirely. Maybe not explicitly. But in its humility, its twist of nostalgia and its turn on modernity, it is absolutely in conversation with the “American Series.” You wouldn’t know it by its title, which is generic enough to pass for a Ray Charles compilation or a Michael Bolton album or a Miller Lite campaign. But once you take a gander at the track listing, the similarities could not be more clear. Cocker, who had not flirted with contemporary material in decades, covers (like Cash) U2’s “One” and R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” Additionally, he returns to untouchable classics. “What’s Going On.” “Chain of Fools.” “Maybe I’m Amazed.” “I Put a Spell on You.” “Jealous Guy.” Classics — every one one of them. And not just classics — but generational vocal performances. At the age of sixty, and for the first time in who knows how long, Joe Cocker was going for it.

But unlike Cash, who leaned on the lower register of his single octave range, narrating his way through the “American Series,” Cocker pushed the upper limits of his instrument — striving to recapture a former greatness. He was like the aged athlete trying to match the records of their youth. Like Carl Lewis attempting to run a sub ten second 100 meter sprint today. Like Bob Beamon trying to leap thirty feet. But, as you can imagine, those are unattainable. Joe Cocker could not sing in 2004 like he sang in 1969. But, that is the humanity of this project. It’s the tragedy and the bravery of it. On occasion, that humanity is touching and beautiful. Elsewhere, it is sad and hard to stomach, like watching that former Olympian tear their achilles before howling and limping their way to the finish.

Although the singer labors mightily, the arrangements and playing on “Heart and Soul” are quite the opposite. C.J. Vanston, known for his scores for Christopher Guest films, is both an able producer and a subtle interpreter of these great compositions. His arrangements are loyal, if restrained. The guitars are immaculate, supporting characters — except in those few instances when Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Steve Lukather show up. And then, they are incendiary — but still succinct. The keyboard, frequently a Hammond B3, is polite, like Billy Preston dialed down more than Booker T. dialed up. And the drums follow the lead — never too fast or too slow, never Funky or hard edged. Cocker’s band sounds expensive — appropriately so. But “Heart and Soul” is not an album of instrumentals. Vanston and Co. are paid to support their esteemed, if diminished, singer.

And for the most part, they do just that. The band never competes with Cocker or the compositions. How could they? But Cocker’s voice, while retaining most of its original quality, lacks the range and force of its former self. He cannot muster what it takes to meet, much less exceed, Aretha or Marvin or Paul at their best. He could have, like Cash, slowed everything down and lowered the stakes. But he didn’t. Cocker did the thing he did thirty five years earlier. He pushed and he howled. In the younger man, you could hear pain. In the much older man, it sounds painful. His takes on the classics are not simply unnecessary, they are unfortunate. They serve neither the singer nor the song. There was a time when Joe Cocker could reinvent a Beatles’ song — not for the better but certainly for the spectacular. That time probably ended in 1970.

But the old dog still had a few tricks. When Cocker settled into more direct, more patient, less iconic fare like “I Who Have Nothing” (made famous in America by Ben E. King) and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (made famous by the Norman Whitfield vehicle, Rose Royce), he offers something new. Both songs are full of pathos, But Cocker’s versions possess the wisdom of a life lived — the regret of more yesterdays than tomorrows. The same is true for “Don’t Let Me be Lonely,” written and recorded by James Taylor for 1972’s “One Man Dog.” Cocker’s rendition is loyal and not particularly exciting, except that it has the thing that JT never did: Soul. The genius of the “American Series” was the magic of a one trick singer revealing a new trick later in life. “Heart and Soul” features a singer who was more naturally gifted than Johnny Cash — a singer who still had some tricks left in his bag. But, also, a singer who had replayed those tricks to the point of hack.

Bono’s vocals on “One” are endlessly patient — he’s a tick behind the beat, too tired to beg, but reliably plain spoken and clear. Johnny Cash’s wonderful version is almost a caricature of that — slower and clearer, but less melodic. Cocker’s version, meanwhile, is neither. It sounds physically pained, but not emotionally so. His howling and mumbling slurs the words to a song that demands clarity. “Everybody Hurts” fares just slightly better by playing up its gospel aspirations. The band sound particularly locked in, warming up an anthem of depression with spiritual flair. For his part, Cocker’s over-singing is not so far from Michael Stipe’s. They sound almost nothing alike, but the strain and melodrama are equivalent. It’s far from an improvement, but Cocker’s version retains the poignancy of the original because of — rather than in spite of — the limitations of his instrument.

“Heart and Soul” was not Cocker’s final album. He released three more before he passed away in 2014 — sooner than he should have but much later than he could have. Those final albums, however, return to much safer ground — lesser oldies but goodies and original, but generic, modern R&B. He didn’t try his hand at Nine Inch Nails or Nick Cave. He didn’t try to soar past Whitney Houston or Freddie Mercury. He returned to life as a tomato farmer, aging howler and esteemed member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

In rare interviews, aging Joe Cocker seemed content — jolly even. His hair — mostly gone but cut short where it remained — a long way from the unkempt fleece of youth. Slow and hunched, he appeared far removed from those spastic onstage gestures of youth. Today, several of his songs survive as mainstays of Classic Rock and Classic Adult Contemporary radio. But his legacy is hard to define. He’s not a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he may never be. His direct descendants are probably Michael Bolton, Ray LaMontagne and Michael McDonald. And — yes — Kodi Lee. As to how “Got Talent” turned Joe Cocker’s gift into a gimmick — it’s hard to defend and perhaps harder to assail. I’m not sure what it signifies or how it came to be. But, best I can tell, it started with Ray Charles and involved Leon Russell, John Belushi, Richard Gere and Simon Cowell.

by Matty Wishnow