Mark Bego's book reminds us just how little we know of this legendary voice. Meticulously researched, it gets us inside the soul of the man who we thrilled to at Woodstock and on one of the greatest tours in rock history, "Mad Dogs And Englishmen." When I met Cocker, I remember gushing like a schoolboy and he was kind, funny, engaging and truly seemed to be appreciative of all the attention. -Mike Greenblatt

Bego pulls into sharp focus a comprehensive concise biography of the life of one of the least understood most culturally iconic singers to emerge from the 1960's. The book sails through time and the choppy waters that made up the life of Joe Cocker. An up-close look at the soul and psyche of an artist that sang from the depths of his being without compromise to the audience, the music press, or his own well-being. While his own demons nearly destroyed him dedication to his art saved him.

In hindsight, this seems like a bargain for the ages: On April 21, 1970, Tulsans paid $4 (advance tickets were $3.50) to experience what would eventually be regarded as one of the most legendary tours in concert history.

That was the date Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour rolled into Tulsa Municipal Theater, now known as Tulsa Theater.

The ringmaster/bandleader of the sprawling tour was Tulsa's Leon Russell, who was springboarded to fame by his presence on the tour.

For better or worse, the tour embraced excess in just about every way possible.

You can read more in Mark Bego's newest celebrity biography, "Joe Cocker: With A Lot of Help from His Friends." The book is forthcoming from Tulsa-based Yorkshire Publishing and, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, Bego will attend a pre-release signing event at Church Studio.

For tickets, go to thechurchstudio.com and click on the events tab. Guests will receive a hardcover copy of the book, an opportunity to meet Bego and a tour of Church Studio's gallery and archives. Images and artifacts from the Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour will be on display.

After the historic tour, Russell transformed a former Tulsa church into Church Studio and started a record label, Shelter Records, with Denny Cordell. Cordell was instrumental in helping Cocker rise from the pub scene in England, and it was Cordell who contacted Russell and asked him to recruit a band for the Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour. The band included other Oklahomans.

The tour, which spawned a hit album and a documentary, elevated the status of Cocker and the bandleader in the music world, but the Cocker-Russell relationship unraveled.

Bego, in a phone interview prior to his Tulsa trip, said the tour wouldn't have existed if Russell hadn't found all those musicians and put the band and the songs together.

"So you would think that (Cocker) would be grateful, and I think he was at a certain point," Bego said. "And then people started, you know, planting the seed of 'he's riding your coattails and blah, blah, blah.' And then I think, by the end of the tour with all the drugs and all the carrying on that went on, I think (Cocker) started to think Leon was stealing his thunder."

But if you look at what Russell was doing, according to Bego, he was kind of replicating what he had done with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends with participating "friends" like Eric Clapton.

"It was kind of like a revolving vaudeville show, so, from my perspective, it made sense to have someone like Leon be like a master of ceremonies, because he could hold it together. And then Joe obviously was the undisputed star of it. But Rita (Coolidge) had her own solo. Claudia Lennear had 'Let it Be.' And then Joe was the undisputed star of the whole thing at the center of it. To think Leon stole his thunder, I don't think so. I think Leon really gave him his most popular album."

Cocker, who took any drug passed his way while on the tour, was in no shape to be a decision maker. Russell wielded such sway that it was apparently his call the tour made a Tulsa stop. Bego, citing a research source, said the Tulsa show was added at Russell's insistence and at substantial travel expense (the tour was making West Coast stops before and after the Tulsa gig). A Tulsa World review of the show was the opposite of complimentary, but the review allowed that "the audience was the most enthusiastic I have seen in Tulsa. Several times Cocker drew the audience to its feet with his performance."

Bego said it's kind of sad Russell and Cocker are so interconnected, but they didn't continue with anything together after the tour. Bego said it's interesting that, although Cocker was allegedly hacked at Russell, Cocker put a Russell creation ("A Song for You") on an album a few years after the tour.

Cocker and Russell were on the same bill for a concert at the dawn of the 1980s. Awkward? The book said they never crossed paths backstage. A reunion finally occurred in Tulsa in 2002, when Russell opened for Cocker at the same venue that hosted the Mad Dogs tour stop.

Cocker died in 2014. Citing a past interview in a different publication, the book said Cocker's face-to-face meeting with Russell occurred after watching Russell's set: "As he got up to go to the dressing room, he came by me and I just said 'Hey Leon, how's it going, man?' ... Within seconds he was asking me stuff like we'd said 'goodbye' only yesterday. 'Do you remember me talking to you about art in Denny Cordell's house for several hours?' I didn't, but he kept throwing stuff like that at me. I was expecting all that hostility after what people had told me. So I finally got to say 'hello' after all that time. I never said 'You're welcome to get up (on stage with me) or anything. I just felt it was enough to have actually spoken with him."

Bego said he was originally approached to do a screenplay about Cocker's life. He wrote the screenplay, and he said the producer loved it. That led to Bego writing the Cocker book for Yorkshire Publishing, and he said the book has been optioned for film.

Who could play Cocker on the big screen? Unfortunately, John Belushi isn't around for the job. Belushi, who mimicked Cocker and the singer's unique body language in the early days of "Saturday Night Live," died in 1982.

"He would have been the perfect person, wouldn't he?" Bego said. "But someone like him that could completely channel Joe Cocker would be amazing. I mean, it's kind of like Rami Malek did with Freddie Mercury, so there's going to be somebody out there."

According to Bego's book, Cocker's associates assumed Cocker would be infuriated by Belushi's imitation. Cocker was flattered. He and Belushi became friends.

Though Bego saw Cocker in concert, he regrets never meeting Cocker.

"But it made this whole process kind of interesting because I felt like I was revealing to the reader in the book the findings that I've discovered about Joe," the author said.

"I have had a couple of books like that. Billy Joel was like that to me because I was never really a huge Billy Joel fan. I knew a bit about him, and I interviewed so many people around him that it was kind of like peeling back the onion skin to find the truth of the middle. And this book was very similar in that I didn't know a lot about Joe until I started the screenplay and then the book. So I'm just really happy that it has been received so well so far."

When it was suggested to Bego that Cocker was a fascinating man, the author replied "Absolutely."

Continuing, Bego said, "What made him tick? -- and the fact that he could have Woodstock and have this hugely successful tour with Mad Dogs & Englishmen and then be depressed about it and lay around and do nothing, much to the frustration of A&M records and everybody else. You would think that anyone that was hungry for stardom would be like, 'OK, this is it, let's go, let's do it.'"

But that wasn't Cocker, who experienced disastrous setbacks due to a reliance on alcohol and drugs.

Bego likes the redemption aspect of Cocker's story. Cocker mounted multiple comebacks (among them was teaming with Jennifer Warnes for "Up Where We Belong"). And, at the insistence of his wife, Cocker was able to kick cigarette and alcohol habits. "He had a good decade or so of clean living where he could be happy and see things clearly," Bego said.

Bego compared Cocker to Aretha Franklin: "Aretha Franklin would go, 'Oh, that Dionne Warwick song that was just in the top 10, let me record it.' She records it and 'I Say A Little Prayer' becomes an Aretha song suddenly. Well, Joe Cocker would do this with other people's material. I mean, who would think that he could take 'With A Little Help from My Friends' and even impressed the Beatles? That just kind of blew me away. It was like, 'Come to Abbey Road. We'll give you some more songs.' I mean, how many people did they ever do that with?"

Bego said Cocker didn't write many songs. Rather he was an interpreter of other artists' songs. "And what great interpretations."

Bego, who has written 68 books, loves to delve into the lives of creative people and found out what makes them tick.

"I really didn't know very much about Joe's personal life and his journey until I started this project, and I'm just fascinated with him," he said. "I can't stop listening to his music, and there's so much great material to discover through every every year of his career -- even through the later years from 1990 on. He made some fascinating and wonderful music. Hopefully, this book will encourage people to go back and discover his creativity and his music."

Nothing to do with the college athletic conference, the north Tulsa venue has hosted Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Ike and Tina Turner, The Temptations, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Little Richard and Etta James.

It was a tour Cocker never wanted to do.

Fatigued from touring following a triumphant Woodstock performance, Cocker ditched his band (the Grease Band) and was looking forward to relaxation that never came. Strong-armed into doing the Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour, Cocker hit the road with an overpopulated band (three drummers!) hastily assembled by Russell.