Joe Cocker dead: why isn’t he in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

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RIP Joe Cocker. The rock legend with the gravelly voice and penchant for unique covers of vital songs has died at the age of seventy due to complications from lung cancer, according to his people. Cocker was a performer at the original Woodstock. His hit songs ranged from originals like “You Are So Beautiful” to covers like “Feelin’ Alright” and “With A Little Help From My Friends.” He sold millions of records and was universally beloved by his fellow artists - The Beatles actually encouraged him to cover their songs at the height of their popularity. Which all begs the question: why isn’t Joe Cocker in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Eligibility for the Rock Hall simply requires that twenty-five years have passed since the release of the artist’s first record. Nirvana, for instance, went into the hall in 2014 because its first album was released in 1989 and the band was nominated in its first year of eligibility and then voted in. Some artists are nominated more quickly than others, and some end up being nominated several times before receiving a sufficient number of votes to make it in.

Joe Cocker released his first album in the late 1960s an has been eligible since the early 1990s. Yet he’s been more or less ignored by the nominating committee, despite the fact that he’d likely be voted in on his first ballot. Existing inductees such as Billy Joel have spoken up publicly about their desire to see Cocker inducted into the hall, and it seems like such a given that more than one published obituary today actually went so far as to mistakenly state that he was in the hall because it seems so unlikely that that he wouldn’t be in by now. So what gives?

The short answer is that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame usually tends to favor bands over individual artists. And even when individuals are inducted, it’s often after they’ve already been inducted as part of famous bands they’ve been in. Ringo Starr, for instance, is being inducted individually in 2015, decades after he was already inducted with The Beatles.

Solo artists have tended to have a harder time getting in if they haven’t been a part of a larger band. For instance Stevie Ray Vaughan is finally going in next year after having been eligible for decades. And Joan Jett appears to have only been added this time around because the surviving members of Nirvana publicly insisted on it during this year’s induction ceremony.

That points to possibility that Joe Cocker could posthumously be nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 and inducted in 2016 based on the public outpouring of support for the nation that’s certain to arise once word of mouth begins to spread this week that, to the surprise of many, he isn’t in already.

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1 Comment

  1. Debra Gannon on April 17, 2015 at 10:01 am

    Joe Cocker is an outstanding performer. I love his music and I feel he should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.