Mad Dogs and Englishmen (album)

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Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Live album by Joe Cocker
Released	August 1970
Recorded	March 27-28, 1970 at Fillmore East, New York
Genre	Rock
Length	78:44
Label	A&M
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
Joe Cocker chronology
Joe Cocker! (1968)	Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1970)	Joe Cocker (1972) (1972)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen is Joe Cocker's 1970 live album, featuring a fusion of rock and soul. Mostly this album is made up of covers, drawing equally from rock (the Rolling Stones, Traffic, Bob Dylan, the Beatles) and soul (Ray Charles, Sam And Dave, Otis Redding). Accompanying Cocker is an enormous choir, a two-piece horn section and several drummers. According to the liner notes: "All elements of the Truth" are included here.

In 2005, Mad Dogs and Englishmen was released as a two-disc Deluxe edition through Universal Records to commemorate the album's thirty-fifth anniversary. [1]

Listening to this CD brings back a lot of memories. Mad Dogs & Englishmen was just about the most elaborate album that A&M Records had ever released, back in 1971, a double LP in a three-panel, fold-out, gatefold sleeve, with almost 80 minutes of music inside and a ton of photos, graphics, and annotation wrapping around it. A live recording done in tandem with a killer documentary film of the same U.S. tour, it was recorded at the Fillmore East, where the movie was a cross-country affair, and the two were, thus, completely separate entities — also, as people couldn't "buy" the film in those days, the double LP has lingered longer in the memory, by virtue of its being on shelves, and also being taken off those shelves to be played. Unlike a lot of other "coffee table"-type rock releases of the era, such as Woodstock and The Concert for Bangladesh, people actually listened to Mad Dogs & Englishmen — most of its content was exciting, and its sound, a veritable definition of big-band rock with three dozen players working behind the singer, was unique. The CD offers a seriously good sound, whether it's just Joe Cocker and a pianist and organist in the opening of "Bird on a Wire," or the entire band going full-tilt on "Cry Me a River"; the remastering was set at a high volume level and there was a decent amount of care taken to get the detail right, so you can appreciate the presence of the multiple drummers, and the legion of guitarists and singers, plus the multiple keyboard players. The lead guitar and solo piano on "Feelin' Alright," for example, come through, but so do the 34 other players and singers behind the lead. This record was also just as much a showcase for Leon Russell as it was for Joe Cocker, which A&M probably didn't mind a bit, as Russell was selling millions of records at the time. As is now known, and it's recounted in the new notes, the tour from which this album was drawn all but wiped out Joe Cocker — on a psychic level — because the music was presented on such a vast scale (and there is a moment in the movie where he mentions breaking up his former backing group, the Grease Band, with a hint of regret in his voice) and his own contribution was so muted by Russell's work as arranger and bandleader. He may well have been the "victim" of a "hijacking" of sorts, but the musical results, apart from the dubious "Give Peace a Chance," are difficult to argue about upon hearing this record anew, decades after the fact — it's almost all bracing and beautiful.

[edit] Track listing

1. "Introduction" – 0:44
2. "Honky Tonk Women" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 3:47
3. "Introduction" – 0:17
4. "Sticks and Stones" (Titus Turner/Henry Glover) – 2:37
5. "Cry Me a River" (Arthur Hamilton) – 4:00
6. "Bird on the Wire" (Leonard Cohen) – 6:37
7. "Feelin' Alright" (Dave Mason) – 5:47
8. "Superstar" (Leon Russell/Bonnie Bramlett) – 5:02
9. "Introduction" – 0:16
10. "Let's Go Get Stoned" (Valerie Simpson/Nikalaus Ashford/Joseph Armstead) – 7:30
11. "Blue Medley" – 12:46
    1. a. "I'll Drown in My Own Tears" (Henry Glover)
    2. b. "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" (Isaac Hayes/David Porter)
    3. c. "I've Been Loving You Too Long" (Otis Redding/Jerry Butler)
12. "Introduction" – 0:21
13. "Girl from the North Country" (Bob Dylan) – 2:32
14. "Give Peace a Chance" (Leon Russell/Bonnie Bramlett) – 4:14
15. "Introduction" – 0:41
16. "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 3:01
17. "Space Captain" (Matthew Moore) – 5:15
18. "The Letter" (Wayne Carson Thompson) – 4:46
19. "Delta Lady" (Leon Russell) – 5:40

[edit] Personnel

• Joe Cocker: Vocals
• Leon Russell AKA The Master of Space And Time: Guitar, piano
• Chris Stainton AKA the Foxy Prince of Roll: Piano, organ
• Jim Gordon AKA the Rock: Drums
• Carl Radle AKA the Mad Professor: Bass
• Sandy Konikoff AKA the Purveyor of the Sphincter Phone: Percussion
• Jim Price "the Price Is Right": Trumpet
• Cloudy Chuck Blackwell "Straight from the Taj Mahal": Drums and percussion
• Don Preston AKA the Gentle Giant: Rhythm guitar, backup vocals
• Snakey Jim Keltner "Floats Like a butterfly, Stings Like a Bee": Drums
• Rita Coolidge AKA the Delta Lady: Backup vocals
• Donna Washburn AKA Lady Madonna: Backup vocals
• Bobby Keys "The Ruby-Lipped Essence of Lubberneck, Texas": Tenor sax
• Claudia Linnear AKA "The Stellar Gypsy": Backup vocals
• Denny Cordell AKA Lunar Teacake Snake Man: Backup vocals
• Daniel Moore, Pamela Polland, Matthew Moore, Nicole Barclay and Bobby Jones: Backup vocals
• Jim McCrary: cover photo
• Linda Wolf, Andee Cohen "The Ladies": Tour Photographers