Yes, it's that Joe Cocker. The very same guy who gave us the memorable cover of "With A Little Help From My Friends" during the Woodstock Musical Festival in 1969.
This 1992 album finds the singer, once again, covering some classic songs and giving them his raspy vocal treatment. The musical accompaniment typically has enough of a bluesy groove to give the illusion that this is a well-done night club act. Unfortunately, the first song "I Can Hear The River" sounds like a dated Miami Vice soundtrack. And Cocker's handling of the main chorus from The Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", with its awkward pauses and overly loud female background singers, ruins what otherwise would be a fine cover song; it should have been more low-key. Other songs include an excellent cover of "Can't Find My Way Home" and a flawless version of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me".
The surround mix on this "5.1 Music Disc" from DTS Entertainment leans toward the subtle, with vocals spread across the front left/center/right speakers and light instrumentation from the back. Now, don't get me wrong. It sometimes has an ambient feel, yes; but this is definitely still a discrete mix seeing as how the overall sound would noticeably change---for the worse---if the rear channels were removed. I don't have a problem with conservative approaches to surround mixing since, if all albums were extremely discrete and focused too much on "wow" factor, the entire genre of 5.1 would be gimmicky. However, such mixes like this one really should really be presented in high-resolution DVD-Audio or SACD, not limited by lossy compression schemes from DTS.
Don't get to thinking this is a terrible album. Given the lack of selection for multichannel music, this release is more than fair and might be worth checking out.
