Singer Joe Cocker dead at 70 after battle with lung cancer

Joe Cocker, the raspy-voiced British singer known for his frenzied cover of “With a Little Help From My Friends,” the teary ballad “You Are So Beautiful” and a contorted performing style uncannily parodied by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, has died. He was 70.

His London-based agent, Barrie Marshall, said Cocker died Monday of lung cancer in Colorado, where he has lived for the past two decades.

Cocker, an interpreter more than a writer, became a star through his dazzling transformation of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Featuring a gospel-styled arrangement and furious call and response between Cocker and the backup singers, the song became a No. 1 hit in England and the highlight of his characteristically manic set at the Woodstock festival in 1969.
Cocker moved to Crawford, Colorado, a town of fewer than 500 people, in the early 1990s. He and his wife, Pam, ran a children’s educational foundation — the Cocker Kids Foundation — that raised funds for the town and schools, and ran the Mad Dog Cafe for several years in town, said Tom Wills, publisher of The North Fork Merchant Herald, a local community newspaper.

Wills said Cocker bought about 40 acres of property and built a hillside mansion — which he called Mad Dog Ranch — when he moved to Colorado.

A group of Cocker’s friends gathered Monday at community radio station KVNF to play Cocker’s songs.

“He had a long battle with cancer. We’re trying to do a little tribute for him,” said Bob Pennetta, a real estate agent and board member of the Cocker Kids Foundation.

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