Joe Cocker
Fire It Up
(Sony)

A straight ahead, simple title track opens what is Joe Cocker’s 23^rd studio album. The horn-infused soul and slight naughtiness of “I’ll Be Your Doctor” is next (some great guitar here) and than a killer big power ballad, “You Love Me Back,” handled brilliantly as much by Cocker’s distinctive gravel delivery as by Matt Serletic’s production (he has worked with Matchbox Twenty and Santana).

I love the laid back “You Don’t Need A Million Dollars,” with Cocker sounding so perfect, so mature, so considered in this angelic little poem of a song; this is one of the best for me here. “Eye on the Prize” mines some blippin’ bleepin slight funk. “Younger” shimmies with a roiling, flippy acoustic and 4