By JEFF JENKINS
It was called the most sensational pop tour to ever visit Australia. It had political intrigue, rock star arrests, chaotic concerts and it climaxed with the deportation of one of the biggest stars in the world.
It all happened 50 years ago this week.
The story of Joe Cocker’s first Australian tour began when promoter Harry M. Miller walked into his Melbourne office and announced to his staff, “I’m getting back into rock ’n’ roll.”
Miller had just been to New York, where he’d seen Elvis Presley at Madison Square Garden. He was negotiating with Colonel Tom Parker to bring the superstar to Australia, for what would have been his first Australian tour. Miller even booked venues, but the tour never happened. But he did land Joe Cocker, the English singer who had found fame two years prior with the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, which resulted in a film and live album.
Ian “Molly” Meldrum announced the Cocker concerts in Go-Set in July 1972, writing prophetically: “The Cocker tour should be, well, let’s just say a KNOCKOUT.”
The tour started in Sydney, where the three shows at the Hordern Pavilion went off without a hitch. “To say that these concerts have been a smashing success would be, my dears, simply playing the epic down,” Meldrum raved. “They have, in fact, been hot heart-stoppers.”
But the tour ran into trouble in Adelaide, the City of Churches. At 10am on Saturday, October 14, Cocker and five of his touring party were arrested and charged by the Adelaide drug squad for possession and use of Indian hemp (which Cocker later called “the worst grass I’d ever come across in my life”). And Cuban percussionist Felix “Flaco” Falcon was charged with heroin possession.
All pleaded guilty to possession, while the charge of using was dismissed due to insufficient proof. Falcon was fined $600; Cocker and the other five were each fined $300.
A Labor member of parliament from NSW, Frank Stewart, called on the Liberal Immigration Minister, Dr Jim Forbes, to deport Cocker “to protect the youth of Australia”.
Dr Forbes signed the deportation papers on Wednesday, October 18, giving Cocker 48 hours to get out of the country. “I have done this because the government takes a very serious view of such offences,” he said. “Especially when committed by persons who are in a position to have a profound influence on many young Australians.”
No one was sure if Cocker and his band – featuring Bobby Keys on sax, and Gloria Jones on backing vocals – would do their next show, at Melbourne’s Festival Hall on October 18. But Cocker finally hit the stage at 9.30pm to a rousing reception. He accepted a cigarette from bass player Alan Spenner, pretending it was a joint. “In five years, marijuana will be legalised in Australia,” Cocker told the crowd. “And the same cat who is trying to throw us out will be smoking it as heavily himself.”
Meldrum recalls that for the next 20 minutes Cocker “treated us to some of the best rock music that has ever been performed in this country”. But then the singer started to slur, took off his shoes, staggered around the stage and fell into the drum kit. A roadie crawled on stage and removed Cocker’s bottle of Johnnie Walker and he managed to finish the gig.
After the show, Cocker returned to the Chateau Commodore, a hotel owned by Melbourne businessman George Frew and his then wife Pixie.
Barefooted and bare-chested, Cocker had an argument with his girlfriend, Eileen Webster. Frew told him he was no longer welcome at the hotel. Cocker threw a can of Foster’s over the hotel’s manager. The police were called. Cocker, Webster and two members of the touring party were arrested and taken to Russell Street police headquarters.
About an hour later, John Robert Cocker, 28, was charged with two counts of resisting arrest, two of assaulting police, two of indecent language, one of assault by kicking, one of offensive behaviour, one of refusing to leave licensed premises, and one of common assault.
Brian de Courcy, who was working for Harry M. Miller, had to find $5000 to post Cocker’s bail. He was amused when he saw his boss on TV denying he had anything to do with the tour. The young promoter watched the interview in Miller’s office. Above the TV was a huge poster: “Harry M. Miller presents live on stage Joe Cocker!”
Covering the story for The Sun was a young journalist named Christopher Skase. The music press sided with Cocker. Meldrum concluded his front-page story in Go-Set: “I know that I can speak for thousands of people throughout Australia by saying thank you, John Robert Cocker and friends for giving us one of the best rock music concerts ever staged in Australia. And … sorry.”
But the rest of the media was not so kind. Journalist John Sorell said on TV: “If I had my way, Joe Cocker and his drugged-up group would be airlifted straight back across the Pacific. I’d make sure their passports are marked ‘never to return’.
“Cocker is yet another of these uncouth, dirty-haired, sloppily dressed show business freaks. Another assembly-line, instant pop star, who, because of overnight fame, sudden pressure and pure disregard for what normal people regard as decent behaviour, has decided that Australia is the sort of outpost where he can indulge in his filthy habits. Get out, Cocker, and don’t come back!”
Cocker did Thursday’s Festival Hall show but was then ordered to leave the country by 3pm on Friday – before the scheduled Friday and Sunday shows. In the end, it was decided that the singer would do two shows on the Friday night, with a midnight performance for those who had tickets for the Sunday show, before he left voluntarily on the Saturday.
The tour never made it to Brisbane and Perth. At 3.30pm on Saturday, Cocker and his girlfriend, flanked by two Commonwealth policemen, boarded a jet at Tullamarine airport, bound for the US. As one of the daily papers put it, “The most sensational pop tour ever to visit this country ended.”
Years later, Cocker revealed there were plans to turn the 1972 tour into a movie. “It’s something I will always remember,” he said. “There was a lot of political intrigue. I believe we did get framed. We were all very mischievous, but there was a lot more to it. We were all set up by the same dealer.”
So where are they now?
Joe Cocker: After vowing never to return, Cocker came back to Australia in 1975 and it became one of his biggest markets. He did nearly 20 Australian tours before he died of lung cancer, aged 70, in 2014. He particularly loved visiting Adelaide, where he always devoured the city’s famous delicacy, the pie floater (a meat pie in a bowl of pea soup, topped with tomato sauce). One of his biggest hits, ‘Delta Lady’, inspired the name of one of Australia’s biggest stars, Delta Goodrem. From 1991 until his death, Cocker was managed by an Australian – former Sherbet manager Roger Davies. And his final hit was written by two Australians – Ross Wilson and The Angels’ Rick Brewster. It was called ‘I Come In Peace’.
Eileen Webster: After nearly 13 years together, she and Cocker finally split in 1976.
Bobby Keys: The sax man returned to Australia the following year with The Rolling Stones. He died of liver cancer in 2014, aged 70.
Gloria Jones: “The Queen of Northern Soul” (who was the first to record ‘Tainted Love’, in 1964) sang backing vocals with T. Rex from 1973 to 1977. She had a baby with Marc Bolan, named Rolan, in 1975. In 1977, the Mini she was driving crashed into a tree, killing Bolan.
George Frew: He divorced Pixie in 1975. He started the Melbourne nightclub Inflation and was a co-owner of the 1981 Melbourne Cup winner Just A Dash. He self-published his autobiography in 2003, Some Day I’ll Have Money. He died in 2019.
Christopher Skase: The journalist married the Chateau Commodore’s co-owner, Pixie, and became a media mogul. But after the collapse of his company, Qintex, he and Pixie fled to Majorca in Spain. The Australian authorities tried to have him extradited back to Australia, but the “chase for Skase” was unsuccessful. He died of stomach cancer in Spain in 2001. He was 52.
Pixie Skase: After 17 years living in exile in Spain, she returned to Australia in 2008.
Harry M. Miller: The renowned agent, manager and promoter had a colourful career that included a 10-month stint in jail after the collapse of ticketing company Computicket. He wrote about the Cocker tour in his 1983 memoir My Story. “Understandably, Joe was puzzled that he never met his Australian promoter. ‘Where is this guy Miller, does he exist?’ he kept asking. Yes, Joe, I was there – looking on from a distance.” After the Cocker tour, Miller did just one more pop tour – David Cassidy in 1974. He died in 2018, aged 84.
Brian de Courcy: After a lifetime in music, de Courcy died in 2022. He always fondly remembered chatting backstage with Cocker about Ray Charles and Bobby Bland. When Cocker hit the stage, instead of ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’, he started singing Bland’s ‘Turn On Your Love Light’ – and the band had no idea what was going on.
Dr Jim Forbes: He died in 2019, aged 95. He never did become a marijuana smoker, as Cocker predicted. In a 2014 interview, he accepted responsibility for Cocker’s deportation but said he “didn’t think it was necessary”. He claimed he was pressured by the then Prime Minister, Billy McMahon, who believed the decision would be politically popular. But it was not popular with Forbes’ daughter, Emma. “Can you imagine being a teenager in 1972 and your father has just thrown Joe Cocker out of the country?”
Frank Stewart: Cocker was always disappointed that a Labor man started the campaign to eject him. After the Whitlam government was elected in 1972, Stewart became the Minister for Tourism and Recreation. A strong Catholic, he opposed legalising abortion and no-fault divorce. He died in 1979, aged 56.
Alan Spenner: Cocker’s bass player died of a heart attack in 1991, aged 43. He played on five Roxy Music albums, including Avalon. Bryan Ferry said, “He lived very hard and he played right from the heart.”
John Sorell: Known as “The Bear” and “The Admiral”, he became Channel Nine’s News director in Melbourne, a position he held for 28 years. A prodigious drinker, he died of a heart attack in 2009, aged 72. He and Meldrum became mates, even though Meldrum suggested to him in 1972: “Stick to your Dame Nellie Melbas – it’s more your scene.
Ian “Molly” Meldrum: After the Cocker tour, he wrote in Go-Set: “Good grief, after this little experience, Jimmy Olsen can keep his job.” But he continued to break music stories for the next four decades. He wrote about the 1972 tour in his second autobiography, Ah Well, Nobody’s Perfect.
Postscript: The final twist in this tale came in 2000, 28 years after Joe Cocker was deported. The then Liberal government, led by John Howard, used Cocker’s ‘Unchain My Heart’ to promote the GST in Australia. They obviously believed that Cocker was still in a position to have a “profound influence” on Australians.