Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen turned 35 years old in 2005. Commemorating this birthday was the release of the limited edition Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen – The Complete Fillmore East Concerts, documenting the entire four shows (on 6 discs) preformed on Friday, March 27th and Saturday, March 28th, 1970 at New York City’s Fillmore East Auditorium and Dance Hall.
The Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour was a hastily organized appendage to a longer tour Cocker was completing in early 1970 in support of With A Little Help From My Friends and Joe Cocker!, which were released in 1969. The subsequent months had been dedicated to a grueling promotional tour for both albums with his Grease Band, anchored by pianist Chris Stainton.
As legend would have it, Cocker arrived in Los Angeles on March 11, 1970 for some rest and relaxation after the stressful and decadently excessive tour. While in LA, Cocker intended to spend his time resting and putting together a new band. However, on March 12th, Cocker’s manager Dee Anthony revealed other plans for him.
Anthony announced that he had booked a seven-week (48 nights in 52 cities) tour set to commence in eight days, on March 20th in Detroit, Michigan. Anthony further explained that should Cocker not agree to the tour, the Musician’s Union, immigration authorities, and concert promoters involved would be disinclined to allow him back in the States to tour in the future. Needless to say, Cocker was caught flat-footed, exhausted, and perhaps a bit burned out.
Seeing an opportunity to help his friend and promote his own growing front-man status, famed producer Leon Russell assembled a group made up of members Cocker’s Grease Band plus several notable studio wonks and became their musical director. After several 10-plus hour rehearsals with his new twenty-person band, Cocker and Company hit the studio, recorded the single ”The Letter/Space Captain” and then took to the road, first in Detroit, Michigan and ultimately last in San Bernardino, California.
The concert tapes that ultimately became Mad Dogs and Englishmen were derived from the four shows performed at The Fillmore East eight days into the tour. The original two-LP set assembled 14 performances from the 61 pieces performed over the Good Friday and Holy Saturday, 1970. Notable in this original release were those songs that were not included. For instance, where was “With a Little Help from My Friends?” Cocker had slayed the Woodstock crowd just eight months prior to Mad Dogs with the Beatles’ classic as well as Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” The Beatles’ “Something” was quite a standout from Joe Cocker! but was not included.
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Article comments
1 - Diane Sullivan
Your review is BRILLIANT! Thanks for it - I worked for Leon for about 10 years and have been a fan since 1970.
2 - Diane Sullivan
Your review is BRILLIANT! Thanks for it - I worked for Leon for about 10 years and have been a fan since 1970.
3 - Steve
Nice write up. Too bad it's mostly pillaged from the website that sold this release. A little more originality would have made it more interesting.
4 - C. Michael Bailey
I relied less on the website than I did on the liner notes. I had previously written on the recording on other websites and drew from that original research for those recordings.
My only interest was making it known that the entire series of concerts existed, which I had not discovered until a year after the release.
I continue to use this release as my springboard for shaming the keepers of the The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East material to release a definitive box set.
5 - anton fier
and if you'd read the liner notes a bit more closely you'd see that the original release was not just made up of fillmore east recordings.