POP MUSIC REVIEW : Cocker Still Roiling and Boiling

Remember the devastating Joe Cocker imitation John Belushi used to do on “Saturday Night Live”: twitching movements, bleary eyes and all? Remember the time Joe himself--good-naturedly but misguidedly--joined Belushi for a round of dueling Cockers, apparently oblivious to the fact that at least as many people were laughing at him as with him?

Well, Cocker can have the last laugh. With Belushi a long-gone victim of the kind of excesses Cocker has conquered, the mad-dog Englishman was a performer at the peak of his powers Monday at the Universal Amphitheatre. That famous phlegmy, nodal, raspy roar is better than ever, as is his way with, around and through a song. Even the cheap sentimentality of “Up Where We Belong” and “You Are So Beautiful” came out like real passion. (Of course, he could sing the college football results in Sanskrit and make it seem like real passion.)

Fortunately, though, there was only a little cheap sentimentality Monday. The generous two-hour set was dominated by the kind of roiling, boiling R&B-based; rockers that made Cocker famous. Selections both old (“Feelin’ Alright,” “The Letter,” the once-again-familiar “A Little Help From My Friends”) and new (a straight take on Leonard Cohen’s wry “I’m Your Man”) benefited from the alive playing of the 13-piece band, which included long-time Cocker mainstay Chris Stainton on keyboards and the unsurpassed Memphis Horns.

But it was Cocker himself--singing up a storm, leaping with joy to close each song, sincerely grateful for the reception from the largely neat, largely middle-aged but hardly restrained audience--who made the show happen. Why, he made aging seem like something to look forward to. And how many other survivors of the Woodstock Wonder Years can say that?