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Matinee: Linda Wolf's 'Cocker Power'
30 January 2021
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 381st in our series of Saturday matinees today: Linda Wolf's Cocker Power.
In this 2:34 video, Linda Wolf talks about becoming the photographer for Joe Cocker and the band Mad Dogs & Englishmen on their epic 1970 tour.
"The Sixties were a time of incredible transformation," she sets the scene. Civil rights, women's rights and human rights were all changing the rules.
She wanted to be part of that without getting hurt and found a way as one of the first female rock-and-roll photographers. "Having the camera was not only my protection but it was also my way in because I could offer my gifts," she says.
And as a bonus, she met women musicians on that tour who were uplifting and uplifted her. She names names, too.
But she focused on Joe Cocker more than anyone because she related to him more than anyone, she says.
She remembers the 2015 Joe Cocker Tribute Concert as "a six-day love-fest without any ego."
She says the experience taught her that being able to make her contribution to this transformative cultural moment with photography was "equal to anything the guys were doing onstage."
And the images sprinkled throughout this clip prove it.
Her 336-page book Tribute: Cocker Power was released last year. The title includes contributions from over 100 musicians and crew members, including Leon Russell, Chris Stainton, Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear and Derek Trucks.