Sheffield Steel in Bloomington, MN

After his one-album stint at
Asylum Records
with
Luxury You Can Afford
in 1978,
Joe Cocker
was without a record label until 1981, when he signed to
Island Records
.
Island
head
Chris Blackwell
took him to the
Compass Point
studios in the Bahamas, where he recorded a 12" single,
"Sweet Little Woman"
/
"Look What You've Done,"
released in May 1981, then continued working on a full-length album. When that album,
Sheffield Steel
, appeared a year later, listeners could be forgiven for imagining, during the instrumental portions, that they were hearing not a
disc, but rather a
Robert Palmer
record. The instrumentalists were
the Compass Point All-Stars
, led by drummer
Sly Dunbar
and bassist
Robbie Shakespeare
, and including keyboard player
Wally Badarou
and guitarist
Barry Reynolds
, and they maintained a steady
tropical
groove on most tracks that strongly recalled their work on
Palmer
's series of albums. Typically, however,
Cocker
made his own a group of high-quality songs from major songwriters.
Bob Dylan
's
"Seven Days"
was an obscure tune only previously heard in a 1979 recording by
Ron Wood
succeeded with
Randy Newman
"Marie"
as he would again four years later with the songwriter's
"You Can Leave Your Hat On"
by singing it without any of the irony
Newman
's version contained.
got a jump on what would be the title track to
Steve Winwood
's next album,
"Talking Back to the Night,"
and he approached
Jimmy Webb
"Just Like Always"
with delicacy. The result was an effective album, if, once again, a one-off effort since
, his career rejuvenated by the success of the movie theme
"Up Where We Belong,"
quickly decamped for
Capitol
. ~ William Ruhlmann