Joe Cocker - Super Hits (2007)

A nicely chosen collection of Joe Cocker's '90s work. Despite its several producers, SUPER HITS is also a surprisingly cohesive album; if you didn't know any better, you might conclude that all these songs were recorded during the same sessions.

Though Cocker's milieu is of the mid-tempo variety, the songs are a varied lot, and the gravel-voiced singer is at his lung-ripping best. He's equally at home with the tortured erotic ironies of Randy Newman's "You Can Leave Your Hat On," and the gentle romantic pleading of John Sebastian's "Darling Be Home Soon." There's also a beautifully understated remake of one of Cocker's signature tunes, "You Are So Beautiful," which producer Don Was sagely recasts as a sort of folk ballad.