R.I.P., Joe Cocker. He has died of lung cancer at age 70. He moved to Crawford, Colorado (in Delta County) in the mid-1990's where he and his wife Pam built the Mad Dog Ranch.

Cocker lived with his wife, Pam, on a 240-plus-acre plot he called "Mad Dog Ranch," named after his 1970 "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" tour, where they moved in 1995 from California. The 17,000-square-foot home they built was host to personal concerts and a garden where, in a juxtaposition to the hard-partying, drug-using reputation he held in the 1970s, the rocker tended to his tomatoes.

In Crawford, a town of less than 400 about 50 miles southeast of Grand Junction, Cocker became a well-known and well-liked member of the community, separated from his days connected to the Rock and Roll greats of which he belonged.

Here's a profile of his non-rock star life there (from the Denver Post in 2008.) [More...]