Joe Cocker - 1976-10-02 - SNL, New York, NY (TV SBD)

Joe Cocker

1976-10-02

Saturday Night Live

NBC Studios

30 Rockefeller Center

New York, NY

TV SBD Recording

192 kbps

Video Below

01. You Are So Beautiful

02. Feelin' Alright*

*with John Belushi

Joe Cocker - 1976-10-02 - SNL, New York, NY (TV SBD)

Joe Cocker finally entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025, alongside Warren Zevon, Bad Company, Chubby Checker, and Cyndi Lauper, just to name a few members of the class. Perhaps Cocker's induction was helped by Sir Paul McCartney, who penned a note to the Hall on his behalf. 

This TV soundboard recording captures Cocker on Saturday Night Live on October 2, 1976, a half century ago today. SNL was revolutionary for its time, a fully live broadcast that showcased brilliant comedians such as John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, etc,  It also became the place where the biggest names in rock wanted to play, as you'll see from several other posts this month.  In any event, after Cocker played his most recent single "You Are So Beautiful", he came back later in the show to perform "Feelin' Alright".  And that's when something happened that was only possible at the time on SNL. John Belushi joined Cocker and his band on stage, doing a perfect imitation of the future Hall Of Famer, including wearing identical clothing, while standing right next to him. A portion of that moment is captured in the youtube video below while the full video is included along with the audio files in the download.  By the way, it wasn't the first time Belushi did his Joe Cocker impression on the show.  A year earlier, on October 25, 1975, the 3rd ever episode of SNL, since the show did not have a scheduled musical guest, John took the stage as "Joe" to perform With A Little Help From My Friends, which you can see here.