Joe Cocker The Letter with Leon Russell Live on Mad Dogs & Englishmen



Part of my "Sharing Music I Like" project.
Apologies for the fact that this video only takes up a quarter of the screen.  This was the only copy I could find of this.
I stumbled upon this several months back, and absolutely love this video.

For one thing, I find Joe Cocker's whole schtick of "find a mediocre hit song from somebody else, and make it rock way better" fascinating.  He's done this with a lot of songs, and it just makes you marvel at the genius of the man.  I imagine every time he turns on the radio, in his head he hears a way better version of whatever song is playing at the moment.
The original version of this song by the Box Tops isn't bad (check it out HERE), but it's amazing how much more fun this song is once Joe Cocker gets his hands on it.
Secondly, I love this video of the live performance, because you can see how much fun everyone is having.  Look at the big smile on the faces of the background singers.  They're loving this!
It's videos like that make me think: "Man! What I wouldn't give to have been alive back then and have been part of that scene!"

Interesting, then, to read the Wikipedia section about this tour:

However, the pace of the tour was exhausting. Russell and Cocker had personal problems; Cocker became depressed and began drinking excessively as the tour wound down in May 1970. 

Just goes to show you never can tell what the state of someone else's mental health is, huh?  They look like they're having the time of their lives, and yet...