WOODSTOCK Â 
 Barely one year later, in October 1968, Joe Cocker released a cover of "With a Little Help from My Friends" – a Number One single in the UK – which gets my vote as the most satisfying Beatles cover of all time.  His version of the song is very different from how the Beatles performed it, and that is what covers should be as far as I am concerned.  Joe Cocker is backed by a stellar band that includes Jimmy Page on guitar (the first Led Zeppelin album came out in the following year), B. J. Wilson of Procol Harum on drums, Chris Stainton on bass, and distinctive organ by Tommy Eyre.  Cocker's frantic performance of the song was a highlight of the Woodstock film of the original Woodstock Music & Art Fair gathering in 1969.  (June 2015)  *    *    *  "At the Hop" though has reached almost mythic status, far beyond even the major hit that Danny and the Juniors made of the song. One of the earliest of the rock and roll revival bands, Sha Na Na (with the name taken from among the innumerable nonsense syllables in the classic "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes) performed "At the Hop" at the original 1969 Woodstock festival not long after the group was founded earlier that year. Sha Na Na is perhaps the most unlikely rock band to appear at Woodstock; what’s more, their set immediately preceded that of Jimi Hendrix which included his legendary performance of "The Star Spangled Banner". "At the Hop" also appears in the Woodstock film and the triple-LP Woodstock soundtrack album.  (August 2015) |