Tom Graves, All Music Guide

The album that foisted Joe Cocker on an unsuspecting public is full of tasteful, raucous covers, Cocker's trademark hysterical vocals, and outstanding studio backing by pros like Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood.

Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Joe Cocker's debut album holds up extraordinarily well across four decades, the singer's performance bolstered by some very sharp playing, not only by his established sideman/collaborator Chris Stainton, but also some top-notch session musicians, among them drummer Clem Cattini, Steve Winwood on organ, and guitarists Jimmy Page and Albert Lee, all sitting in. It's Cocker's voice, a soulful rasp of an instrument backed up by Madeline Bell, Sunny Weetman and Rossetta Hightower that carries this album and makes "Change in Louise," "Feeling Alright," "Just Like a Woman," "I Shall Be Released," and even "Bye Bye Blackbird" into profound listening experiences. But the surprises in the arrangements, tempo, and approaches taken help make this an exceptional album. Tracks like "Just Like a Woman," with its soaring gospel organ above a lean textured acoustic and light electric accompaniment, and the guitar-dominated rendition of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" — the formal debut of the Grease Band on record — all help make this an exceptional listening experience. The 1999 A&M reissue not only includes new notes and audiophile-quality sound, but also a pair of bonus tracks, the previously unanthologized B-sides "The New Age of Lily" and "Something Coming On," deserved better than the obscurity in which they previously dwelt.

Personnel: Joe Cocker (vocals); David Cohen, Tony Visconti, Jimmy Page, Henry McCullough, Albert Lee (guitar); Chris Stainton (piano, organ, bass); Tommy Eyre (piano, organ); Artie Butler (piano); Matthew Fisher, Steve Winwood (organ); Carol Kaye (bass); Paul Humphries, Clem Cattini, Mike Kelly, B.J. Wilson, Kenny (drums); Brenda Holloway, Merry Clayton, Madeline Bell, Sunny Hightower, Rosetta Hightower, Su Wheetman, Sunny Wheetman (background vocals) With A Little Help From My Friends. Producer: Denny Cordell With A Little Help From My Friends. Reissue producer: Bill Levenson With A Little Help From My Friends. Principally recorded at Olympic and Trident Studios, London, England in 1968 With A Little Help From My Friends. Originally released on A&M Records (3109) With A Little Help From My Friends. Includes liner notes by J.P. Bean.

Joe Cocker's debut built on the promise of the title track, a hit single the previous year, which had introduced the world to the singer's astonishing blues rasp of a voice and remains to this day one of the finest Beatles cover versions committed to vinyl With A Little Help From My Friends. The vocal pyrotechnics of that song are muted on the rest of the album, with Cocker demonstrating his fine handling of more subtle material such as Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman" and "I Shall Be Released With A Little Help From My Friends." Backed by his own seasoned Grease Band and session players Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood, Cocker sings with a soulful intensity that shone all too briefly during his wayward career.

John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, Issue 40, 1969

Joe Cocker and the Grease Band were ending a performance they gave recently at the Whiskey in Los Angeles. As they went into their explosive version of "With A Little Help From My Friends," a nubile young admirer, apparently driven wild by Cocker's amazing voice and insane spastic contortions, stationed herself on her back between Cocker's legs and, reaching up, began to work the Cocker cock with considerable fervor. Moments later Joe delivered the scream of his career.
Which is not to say that everyone will react with such frenzy to this latest and perhaps greatest British bearer of the Ray Charles tradition, but that Cocker's first album, a gem, should cause an awful lot of excitement. Despite the fact that he's a twenty-four year-old product of Sheffield, England, Cocker's voice is that of a middle-aged Southern black man—and the quality of his voice enables him to transcend (as does Ray Charles on his coke commercials) the lyrics and the traditional happy associations of such originally sprightly tunes as "Bye Bye Blackbird," turning them into astonishing, compelling expressions of pain and desperation.
That Cocker is a Charles imitator is beyond argument—at various places on his album he even receives vocal backing from former Raelettes. But Cocker has assimilated the Charles influence to the point where his feeling for what he is singing cannot really be questioned And, in answer to the question of why someone should listen to Cocker when there is Charles to listen to—how many times in recent years has the latter applied himself to such exceptional modern material as Dave Mason's "Feelin' Alright?" or such contemporary Dylan as "I Shall Be Released" (of which Cocker does the most evocative, moving version I've yet heard)?
Denny Cordell, late of Procol Harum fame, deserves a feverish round of applause for producing this album, in spite of such momentary lapses as stealing almost intact Havens' arrangement of "Just Like A Woman" and letting Jimmy Page nearly capsize "Bye Bye Blackbird" with a completely inappropriate solo. Cordell was so determined to come up with a perfect album (and the album is nearly perfect) that he spent over a year and a small fortune getting everything just so. For instance, he's reportedly got ten excellent takes of "Released" in a can somewhere, having decided that none of the takes—done by Al Kooper and Aynsley Dunbar among others—were quite good enough. Cordell's success in fusing a consistently marvelous backing unit out of America's premier studio soul singers and England's most famous rock musicians and delicate egos cannot be exaggerated.
Besides such material as the Dylan, Mason and Beatle stuff there are three originals written by Cocker and Grease Band keyboard man Chris Stainton: "Marjorine" (a Stainton puppet show score to which Joe added words), "A Change in Louise," and "Sandpaper Cadillac," all of which are brilliant rock tunes. It's a triumph all around. And the thought of Cocker's next album, which will include new Harrison and McCartney songs and a lot more Grease Band originals, is an exceptionally pleasant one.

Rob O'Connor, Yahoo! Music

The first explosion has the impact. Interpretive singers often don't get their due. Cocker's so in-your-face with his boozy Ray Charles imitation, you can't ignore it.

© Frank Steven Groen