He had a top 10 hit in 1975 on the aching ballad "You Are So Beautiful," with his voice cracking on the final emotional note and won his first Grammy Award in 1983 for his "Up Where We Belong" duet with Jennifer Warnes, which was the theme of the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman."
Cocker, who received an Order of the British Empire in 2011 for his contribution to music, released 40 albums and continued to tour after the hits dried up.
He was known for an intense, twitchy stage presence where his arms would flail and face contort as he wrung notes from his raspy voice. When he performed on "Saturday Night Live" in 1976, Belushi parodied him onstage, exaggerating his movements by flipping to the ground. It was a clip seen as widely as Cocker's own performances.