Hymn For My Soul

by Joe Cocker

Product Description:

Personnel: Greg Leisz (guitar, steel guitar, mandolin); T-Bone Wolk (guitar, bass guitar); Mark Stewart (guitar); T-Bone Burnett (baritone guitar); Brian Denbow (viola); Tom Scott (saxophone); Chuck Findley, Greg Adams (trumpet); Benmont Tench (piano); David Palmer (Wurlitzer piano, organ, keyboards); Mike Finnigan (Hammond b-3 organ); Bob Babbitt (bass guitar); Jim Keltner (drums, percussion); James Gadson, Charley Drayton (drums); Don Heffington (congas, triangle, vibraslap); Antonique Smith, Jim Gilstrap, Julia Waters, Julianna Raye, Merry Clayton, Oren Waters, Orfeh, Tata Vega, Tracy Nicole Chapman (background vocals).

Even in his sixties, Joe Cocker is fully capable of releasing a soulful roar as powerful as that of his glory days. HYMN FOR MY SOUL finds the British belter adding a hint of gospel and a decided spiritual feeling to his trick bag without actually covering any gospel material. Ever the gifted interpreter, Cocker takes on everything from Bob Dylan's "Ring Them Bells" to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Long As I Can See the Light" and even the Beatles' "Come Together," his emotive rasp transforming them all into something uniquely his own. The title track, an Andy Fairweather-Low tune, combines greasy R&B with a gospel tint in a way that sums up the album's mixture of earthy emotion and upward aspirations.