"The Letter" - The Box Tops and Joe Cocker
It's that "gimme a ticket for an aeroplane" song (1967 & 1970)
Rock ’n’ Roll with Me is a daily email newsletter (except Sunday) presenting one or more of my favorite danceable rock ’n’ roll songs, from the sixties onwards, along with some fun facts and memories.
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Our songs of the day
Today we’re enjoying the blue-eyed soul of the Box Tops and the bluesy voice of Joe Cocker as they sing one of my favorites, “The Letter.”
The Box Tops were young pups — the lead singer Alex Chilton was only 17 — when they made it big with this tune in 1967. It reached number one on the Hot 100 for four weeks and earned them two Grammy nominations and a gold disc. Not bad for a new band out of Memphis, Tennesee, although as I explain in fun facts below, they had some important music industry connections — and Memphis happened to be a hotbed of blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll activity that spawned many notable artists. (Elvis, anyone?) Here’s their memorable version of “The Letter”:
Three years later Joe Cocker would have his first top-ten single with the same song, recorded during rehearsals for his Mad Dog & Englishmen tour and included on the live album of the same name.
What you need to know is that I adore Joe Cocker to the point of having a photo of him and his sweet little ol’ mum on the bedroom wall, as well as a poster from the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour in the entryway. I’ve watched the documentary Joe Cocker: Mad Dog with Soul (2017) twice and will probably watch it again. Joe made his name not as a songwriter but as one of the most unique interpreters of songs in the rock ‘n’ roll songbook, and I think his version of “The Letter” demonstrates why he was simply one of a kind:
You see what I mean? Joe slays me with that song.
And doesn’t Leon Russell crack you up with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he plays the keyboards? (A little filming continuity problem there, given that he doesn’t have it most of the time.)
You might wonder, who are all those other folks onstage in street clothes singing like crazy? As singer Rita Coolidge and others relate in the Mad Dog with Soul documentary, Joe was given short notice by his manager — only one week! — of an extensive US tour. He was exhausted from having just finished the UK tour and wanted to take a break, but was warned that “legs would get broken, the contracts have been signed.” Which meant Joe had to get a band together in no time. Leon had produced Joe’s second album and offered to put the tour together, but insisted that he make all of the decisions. Joe agreed, to his initial relief but to his ultimate detriment, as Leon hired dozens of musicians and backup singers (estimates range up to 40), and the label added a film crew of about ten people on top of that. Hence those people who look like members of the audience singing onstage.
After 52 shows in 48 US cities in seven weeks in which he performed all-out, with “too many drugs going around” and “nobody looking after him at all,” Joe was physically and emotionally wrecked to the point that he could barely talk. With the cost of the musicians and the film crew, he was also broke after that tour, to the point of not having a place to live or even enough money to buy a guitar. Is it any surprise that his original excitement at getting into the music business turned into deep disillusionment? I’ll be writing more about this in a future post, as I think the repercussions of that tour played out in his music career for the remainder of his life.
Bonus tracks
So we will be coming back to Joe later, but we won’t be coming back to the original line-up of the Box Tops, who disbanded in 1970. Therefore, here are two more of the Box Tops’ very danceable tunes. First, “Cry Like a Baby” from 1968:
And here’s “Soul Deep” from 1969 — love this one:
Some fun facts
“The Letter” was composed by Wayne Carson, who also co-wrote “Always on My Mind,” made famous by Elvis Presley (1972) and Willie Nelson (1982), and covered by many others.
As mentioned above, the Box Tops had some important music industry connections. Bass guitarist and keyboardist Bill Cunningham was the brother of the lead vocalist for The Hombres, B.B. Cunningham, Jr., and the son of country singer Buddy Blake. Bill left the Box Tops in 1969 to study the upright bass, and became a backup musician for a diverse array of well-known artists from classical to soul to pop, as well as playing in many symphony orchestras.
Joe Cocker was training to be gas fitter in Sheffield (England) when he hit it big. A gas fitter is someone who installs and fixes gas pipes and appliances. It boggles the mind to think of someone that talented not being discovered and spending his life being a tradesman. But he might have actually been happier as a gas fitter, and perhaps even financially healthier, during the years when he felt hard done by the music industry. We’ll never know, but we do know that he left us an incredible musical legacy.
Joe continued to put out gold and platinum albums throughout his fifty-plus-years career and toured internationally until the year before his death at the age of seventy (2014).
The reformed (or do I mean re-formed?) Box Tops are touring and you can find their tour schedule and a newer version of “Soul Deep” at their official site here. (Rock ‘n’ roll never dies; it just comes back in new forms!)
Some questions for the comments section
How deep is your soul?
What makes you cry like a baby?
Who was always on your mind at age 16?
If you did major tours and hit albums and singles for a record label, and ended up owing them almost a million dollars (as Joe did), what would you do?
Discuss: Was the music industry in those days a bunch of gangsters, or simply mischaracterized and misunderstood?
Wish you could read one of these posts every single day? Joyful news — you can! Every day but Sunday.