Joe Cocker Alex Sadkin. In 1982, at the behest of producer Stewart Levine, Cocker recorded the duet "Up Where We Belong" with Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack of the 1982 film "An Officer and a Gentleman". The song was an international hit, reaching number 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo. The duet also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Cocker and Warnes performed the song at the awards ceremony. Several days later, he was invited to perform "You Are So Beautiful" with Ray Charles in a television
Up Where We Belong truth to it. It was so unlikely, because Joe has this well-known, very raw, masculine energy. I was less well known and had this very vulnerable, quintessential female energy and we were very polarized, as men and women often are these days. But we met in the middle." The success of "Up Where We Belong" was not without its drawbacks for Cocker. He admitted that Island Records owner Chris Blackwell also hated the song and wasn't interested in releasing it. They had put out Cocker's first project for the label, "Sheffield Steel", in June 1982, just a month before the