Joe Cocker should be on top of the world. He has just been awarded an OBE for services to music, been inducted into the hall of fame in his home town of Sheffield and reached the end of a lengthy European tour. But rather than celebrating, he is battling to clear his throat. "We've done about 100 shows," he says apologetically. "That's why I sound a bit fried."

In truth, Cocker has sounded "a bit fried" for the past 45 years. Armed with a voice made up of ground glass and anguish, the gas pipe-fitter-turned-Woodstock icon has battled booze, drugs and failing fortunes to become arguably Britain's best white soul singer. He is also one of music's most intense characters. Though no longer wild-eyed and shaggy-haired, he still feels through the air with his fingers, mimicking the guitar part of Hitchcock Railway.

Accompanied by an eight-piece band including piano, Hammond organ, saxophone and two rock-chick backing singers, Cocker does what he has always done best - dismantling other people's songs and sticking them back together with his own brand of raw soul. He gives the Box Tops' The Letter a new urgency, turns You Can Leave Your Hat On from barely blush-worthy to raunchy, and predictably raises the roof with his first hit, With a Little Help from My Friends, while images of Cocker as a grizzled young man flicker on chapel window-style big screens behind him.

His softer songs, however, give his guttural roar a much-needed break. Hymn for My Soul, the title track of his latest album, together with You Are So Beautiful and the Oscar-winning Up Where We Belong have a quiet strength that suits the mellowing 62-year-old. But that old fire still burns in Cocker and after two encores, he is jumping up and down - not fried, but wired on his own achievements.