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by Dave HoekstraApril 8, 2010

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpjNLjBbVd4?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]

Monday, June 22, 2009

How did this guy make it to 2009?
In a 1988 interview the master of the soul music cover told me he listens to nearly 500 songs before making his selections. Besides this ditty here Cocker has re-popularized Randy Newman’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” “You Are So Beautiful,” (co-written by the late Billy Preston) and the Box Top’s “The Letter,” among others.
Cocker, now, 65, said there is no guaranteed method for knowing a song is right for him.
“Otherwise we’d all have hits,” he growled back in ‘88. “I go by lyrics that I like and songs that have a hook that are just a bit different. I have to do things I like to sing.”

About The Author
Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra is a Chicago author-documentarian. He was a columnist-critic at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 through 2014, where he won a 2013 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. He has written books about heartland supper clubs, minor league baseball, soul food and the civil rights movement and driving his camper van across America.

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