Quotes from Joe Cocker

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

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 used to get so carried away while I was on stage that I'd be physically damaged by the end of a concert.

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

I was in Germany when the wall came down.

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

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

When I look back, I didn't take care of myself at all.

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

I could never deny myself bein' an artist.

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?

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

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.

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.

In me soul, I'm gentle.

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

I'm getting older; you realise you are on the countdown of what you are doing, so performing means more than it ever did to me.

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

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.

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

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

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.