Joe Cocker

I like to use effects, but a lot of the time I just can't deal with these tracks with all these artificial sounds.

For me, the focus are songs, which really get the audience moving.

I love songs that have a rocking and grooving feeling.

It's all a matter of hearing what I like and seeing if I can make it fit into my style.

Well, we have this place in Telluride, Colorado. It's somewhere I can just get away and relax and think.

I don't think you can live as long as I have in rock n' roll and not take a few hard knocks.

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

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.

My strongest audiences are in Germany and France - they stuck with me through my dark days in the '70s.

I still like the stuff from the old days: Marvin Gaye, Donnie Hathaway.

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

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.

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

I could never deny myself bein' an artist.

To be on the road, even if you're not that happy, is all right, as long as I'm pourin' me heart into it.

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 used to slap my hip to keep a beat.

I always encourage my promoter to see if we can go someplace new. And he'll go, 'OK, how about Armenia?'

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 think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

There are people who'll dismiss me as 'just' a singer. That's how it is, how it's always been, but just because I'm not hunched over a piece of paper with a pen in my hand doesn't mean I'm not putting in the graft.

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.

'You Are So Beautiful,' I think, is probably the, you know, the strongest tune I ever did in just the simplicity in it.

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