JOE COCKER and The Grease Band - ON AIR

The Grease Band was a rock band that evolved out of Joe Cocker's backing band. They recorded two albums in the 1970s. They are probably most widely known for their performance of The Beatles song, With A Little Help From My Friends, with Joe Cocker at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. With respect to their self-titled first album, reviewer Joe Viglione said though this is far from commercial, it is important to have this document of the guys who made magic behind Joe Cocker in 1969 and Marianne Faithfull in the mid-'70s. Recorded in London, it is vintage stuff, and 100 years from its making will no doubt be respected for the historic and studious record that it is. The keyboard player was Chris Stainton, another Sheffield born man, known to his friends as Robin, who went on to tour extensively with Eric Clapton. The bassist was Alan Spenner, who went on to play in the UK white soul outfit Kokomo, with rhythm guitarist Neil Hubbard. Spenner is rumoured to be the first white man to be offered a session job at Motown Records. Drummer Bruce Rowland later joined Fairport Convention from 1975 through 1979. Henry McCullough was the lead guitarist, a role he later occupied in Paul McCartney's Wings, and continues today as a solo artist.

Recorded live at the BBC with the Grease Band in 1968-69.

01. Run Shaker Life
02. With A Little Help From My Friend
03. Marjorine
04. Change In Louise
05. Can't Be So Bad
06. Let's Get Stoned
07. That's Your Business
08. Hitchcock Railway
09. Lawdy Miss Clawdy
10. Darlin' Be Home Soon
11. Hello Little Friend
12. Delta Lady

In An age of flower and psychedelia,Joe Cocker was something different."He didn't look like any part of the pop scene at all,"said music mogul Denny Cordell,on first meeting the gasfitter-turned soulster."And then I heard him sing!"A record deal was signed,in April 1968 'Majorine' reached No.48 in the UK charts,in November 'With A Little Help from My Friends' hit No.1-and in the space of little more than a year Joe Cocker and The Grease Band went from playing for a few dozen students and steelworkers in Northern pubs to half a million hippies at Woodstock.That year-1968 to '69-is the period spanned by the sessions on this album.

Joe formed the first Grease Band in 1967.He'd fronted local groups in Sheffield for seven years,a record deal with Decca had fallen flat after one single in '64 and this was a last gasp effort to make his mark. The band's name came from an interview he read in Downbeat magazine with the soul/jazz organist Jimmy Smith,who described a musician as having "a lot of grease".Legend has it the first Grease Band gig was at a rugby club barbecue,where the side attraction was a piano-smashing concert.Joe brought in friends from his earlier bands-Vernon Nash on piano,Dave Memmott,drums and Frank Miles out of Dave Berry's Cruisers-but the decisive member,the man who would become Cocker's right-hand man and communicator of his musical ideas in the years to follow, was Chris Stainton.

Cocker and Stainton got down to writing songs.Joe:"We wrote in the daytime,instead of going to the pub.'Marjorine' and 'Change In Louise' and quite a few other tunes were written at that time."They left Sheffield and the first Grease Band behind and moved down to London,taking with them an eightteen year old keyboards prodigy Tomy Eyre.He recalls:"We were living in Sussex Gardens in a bed and breakfast,three in a room,and rehearsing on Westbourne Grove in a convertde cinema."Soon there were five in the room,as guitarist Micky Gee and drummer Tommy Reilly were brought in for the second incarnation of the Grease Band.

Joe's single,The Beatles''With A Little Help From My Friend' was released the same week as he recorded the first Top Gear BBC session.His vocal treatment and the unusual arrangement made an immediate impact on the public and the song catapulted him to fame-rather against the odds.'Cocker's Shocker' was the Melody Maker headline,the week it entred the Top Ten.The idea for doing the song in that way had come to Joe as he sat on the outside toilet at his parents' home in Sheffield,and Tommy Eyre had worked out the distinctive Bach-type intro.Nearly thirty years on,'With A Little Help' remains a feature of all Cocker shows.Joe:"The only time we did't do it,one night in Rome about fifteen years ago,the audience rioted...smashed the place up and stoned the coach as we tried to leave.So I thought we'd better keep it in!"

The new guitarist and drummer didn't work out and were soon replaced by Irishman,Henry McCulloch,and Kenny Slade,an exuberant characer whom Joe had known for years in Sheffield.The summer of '68 was spent on the road all over Britain,touring extesively and building up a stsunch following in universities,clubs and at festivals.They played a mix of originals and covers - including the two songs on this album which have never been released before now - 'Can't Be So Bad',cribbed from a Moby Grape album,and 'Run Shakers Life'.This is the Grease Band - Stainton,Eyre,McCulloch and Slade - that appears on the first Top Gear session,from October '68.

Success in Britain led to offers from across the Atlantic - but not before further changes in the line-up.Out went Tommy Eyre and Kenny Slade -"they were too jazzy,"recalls Joe.In came Alan Spenner on bass and Bruce Rowland on drums,with Chris Stainton moving from bass to keyboards.Everywhere in 1969 - from The Ed Sullivan Show on TV to gigs at Filmores East and West,through the mid-west and in front of massive crowds at rock extravaganzas like the Newport,Ddenver and Atlanta festivals,Joe and The Grease Band blazed their trail.After the crowning glory of Woodstock in mid-August they returned to London,where the September DLT and Top Gear sessions were recorded.

The track on these two sessions - 'Let's Get Stoned',a grest favourite in those heady days;'That's Your Business',another early Cocker/Stainton composition;'Hitchcock Railway';'Darling Be Home Soon' - Joe had shared the bill on several gigs with composer John Sebastian's band The Lovin' Spoonful,and the old 50s rocker 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy' - were all songs he had played throughout the summer tour and ones that would appear on his second album,Joe Cocker!

Which brings us to 'Hello Little Friend' and 'Delta Lady'...In 1969 Leon Russell was an L.A. session musician who had recently played piano for Delaney and Bonnie.A meeting was arranged and he invited Joe and Chris Stainton to his house,where he played them four songs.As a result Joe recorded 'Helo Little Friend' and 'Delta Lady',which Leon had written for his then lover,Rita Coolidge,for the Joe Cocker! album,with Russell playing guitar and piano on the backing tracks.Top Gear listners got a preview,Joe recording the programme the day before he appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival.

On this album,'On Air',Joe Cocker and The Grease Band can be heard at their best.Joe,untroubled by the demos that would drag him down over the next decade,is dynamic with a funky,uncomplicated backing.But a parting of the ways was inevitable.As Joe fell increasingly under Leon Russell's musical influence,he decided that he and The Grease Band were running out of steam.

He split with the band and flew back to Los Angeles to form Mad Dogs Englishmen.
The 1960s were over...                  http://fp.io/bd36dec7/