Joe Cocker quotes:

Back then, I, most rockers loved Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis... you know in the '60s.

Back then, I, most rockers loved Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis... you know in the '60s."

Rock and roll came into my life when I was about 12, 13, when Little Richard and Chuck Berry had just started hitting the shores of England.

I love songs that have a rocking and grooving feeling.

Don't go on American Idol, I think you'll spend the rest of your life living it down and I think it's getting kinda scary, isn't it?

I have always been a sucker for ballads, but you have to be careful these days, you can't overload people.

I have one message for young musicians around the world: Stay true to your heart, believe in yourself, and work hard.

I would like to be able to do a song with Ray Charles, before we both get too old.

It's all a matter of hearing what I like and seeing if I can make it fit into my style.

Europe is usually where I am usually galloping around.

I never picked up a guitar as a kid, partly because my dad didn't want the noise in our little back-to-back in Sheffield.

I always encourage my promoter to see if we can go someplace new. And he'll go, 'OK, how about Armenia?'

Well, we have this place in Telluride, Colorado. It's somewhere I can just get away and relax and think.

I have sung to large crowds since then, and there is a feeling that once you get over 100,000 people, you kind of lose the control element, you don't know if you are really getting through or not.

I like to use effects, but a lot of the time I just can't deal with these tracks with all these artificial sounds.

Well, we have this place in Telluride, Colorado. Its somewhere I can just get away and relax and think.

Once you get into entertaining a quarter of a million people, it's a very weird place to be.

Ive been touring now since about 68.

The world is a tougher place to live in than it was back then, as we come into the computer age.

When I used to put an album out, I knew everyone on the charts. There weren't that many bands. Now, I couldn't even name half the new groups.

I was in Germany when the wall came down.

You're everything I hope for. You're everything I need. You are so beautiful to me.

I had a job when I was 16 at a gas fitter, which was a bit like a pipe fitter.

I've been touring now since about '68.

If you're going to have a cabin fever, have a big cabin, you know.

A lot of times when you're young and carefree, you don't realize, when you tip over the edge, how difficult it is to climb back in.

God, I'm just a fat bald guy, 60 years old, singing the blues, you know?

I think the only thing I would've ever been any good at was probably being a pub landlord. I've thought of that a couple of times.

A lot of times, it's nice to open, because the heat's off you. You just go out and blast your set and say to whoever's going to finish, 'There you go.' Even though when you first start, people are drifting in, and that's kind of a bit disconcerting.

Well, over the years, I've developed a stable of songs of which I'm known for and never get tired of singing.

I don't think you can live as long as I have in rock n' roll and not take a few hard knocks.

Oooh I get by with a little help from my friends.

For me, the focus are songs, which really get the audience moving.

Love lift us up where we belong.

I have one message for young musicians around the world. Stay true to your heart, believe in yourself, and work hard.

Unfortunately I was in New York when 9/11 happened.

I only look at things in a short term of a few years, but admittedly, I reevaluate what I'm doing, and whether I want to continue touring or not.

Some of the songs I do once in a while that I kinda... my set list is basically like my hits, there is a good reason why they are there; people really like them.

It's interesting, as I said on the last tour in America, the audience actually came out, they had to have been the kind of fans who listened to my music via their parents, you know what I mean?

Over the years, Ive worked with just about everybody.

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

Yeah, one of the main ways is for songs that make me want to move.

Making music, if youre a real musician, you carry on, regardless in this world.

It's nice to get a response from the artists that I cover.