This Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Has Wholesome Colorado Connections

Joe Cocker was finally nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year — and the late rock star made it on the first try. His fellow 2025 inductees include Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Cyndi Lauper, OutKast, Soundgarden and the White Stripes.

Cocker was a big figure in the new wave of rock and roll that swung out of England in the '60s and '70s, and even got a letter of recommendation to the Hall from none other than Paul McCartney. "Joe was a great man and fine singer whose unique style made for some fantastic performances," the former Beatle wrote. "He sang one of our songs, 'With A Little Help From My Friends,' a version produced by Denny Cordell which was very imaginative.

"All the people on the panel will be aware of the great contribution Joe made to the history of rock and roll," McCartney continued. "And whilst he may not have ever lobbied to be in the Hall of Fame, I know he would be extremely happy and grateful to find himself where he deserves to be amongst such illustrious company."

Indeed, it's shocking to any amateur rock historian that Cocker wasn't even nominated before now (although Billy Joel did endorse him in 2014). While he got attention early on for covering Beatles songs — his first single was "I'll Cry Instead," with Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan handling guitars, in 1964 — it wasn't until 1966 that he caught attention, when producer Denny Cordell took note of his group the Grease Band, which he formed alongside Chris Stainton. The Grease Band underwent a couple iterations before Cocker found success behind his version of "With a Little Help From My Friends" in 1968, and an album of the same name followed the next year in tandem with a self-titled LP When reviewing With a Little Help From My Friends, which went gold in the U.S., New York Times critic Robert Christgau wrote that Cocker could be "the best singer in England," adding, "he is the best of the male rock interpreters, as good in his way as Janis Joplin is in hers."

After Cocker died, McCartney said the cover "totally turned the song into a soul anthem and I was forever grateful to him for doing that."

It was significant that Cocker had the trust of the Beatles, the biggest band at the time. McCartney was so impressed by his cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends" that the band's label, Apple, made an ad for it.

“The day it happened, I got a telegram,” Cocker told Louder Sound in 2013. ‘THANKS YOU ARE FAR TOO MUCH, JOHN AND PAUL.’ Then Apple Records placed an ad in the music press, congratulating me. What a plug!”

George Harrison and McCartney even allowed him to cover their then-unreleased songs "Something" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" for Joe Cocker!, following his buzzy performances at the Denver Pop Festival. Cordell was able to get him booked for Woodstock, too, where Cocker flew in by helicopter — there was no other way, given the swell of hippies.
When the Grease Band dissolved at the end of '69, Cocker had to create a new band to fulfill tour commitments. He formed Mad Dogs & Englishmen with more than twenty heavy-hitting session musicians — including Leon Russell and Jim Gordon — and the tour resulted in a film and live album named for the band. The decades that followed saw Cocker involved in numerous collaborations and his own releases — live albums, compilations, singles, you name it.

Still, it wasn't until 2025 that Cocker was considered for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “When the nominations were revealed, he would be upset to realize that an artist that he thought had long been in the Hall hadn’t yet been inducted," said his wife, Pam. "He was an advocate for so many of these people that he felt were deserving but was never angry or upset that he, himself, had been overlooked. Though he certainly wanted that honor, he wasn’t covetous of it and felt that it would someday come. He was confident in his career and talent and that was really all that mattered to him.

"He would have been delighted to have this recognition not only for himself but for other great artists he thought were deserving of it," her statement concluded.

Cocker is no longer here to receive the honor; he passed away from lung cancer at the age of seventy in December 2014, at his home in Crawford, Colorado. He and Pam had moved to the town in 1994, forgoing celebrity destinations such as Telluride or Aspen for a more rural, homier feel.

His fifteen-bedroom, 17,000-square-foot home — which locals called a castle — definitely stood out. Still, Cocker was welcomed by the town, winning over any skeptics who knew about his well-documented past debauchery. But by then, Cocker was getting sober and was simply looking for a wholesome place where he could settle down. In a 2008 Denver Post profile, Cocker enthused about his ranch, growing tomatoes, fly fishing, hikes around the West Elk Mountains with his dog, Ben, and playing snooker with new local friends.

He called his new home Mad Dog Ranch (not to be confused with the Snowmass recording studio of the same name); after he died, it went up for auction in 2016. Cocker was remembered as a champion of his surrounding community through his and Pam's Cocker Kids Foundation, which funded scholarships, music camps, playgrounds and so much more. The Post noted that the foundation even covered the expenses to light up Crawford every Christmas and host an annual party, with a Santa delivering gifts to children.

Now the British rock star is finally getting acknowledgment for his gifts, and as the residents of Crawford know, he deserves it for even more than his music.