![]() ![]() There remains some confusion over whether he quit or was fired. None of their classic Wilko-penned singles – including ‘Roxette’, ‘She Does It Right’ and ‘Back In The Night’ – had broken the UK Top 40 and amid disagreements over the track listing for their third studio album ‘Sneakin’ Suspicion’ Wilko left the band. 1975’s second album ‘Malpractice’ made the UK Top ’s live album ‘Stupidity’, dovetailing with the emergence of the British punk scene, topped the album chart.īy the height of punk in 1977, however, Dr Feelgood were in turmoil. The likes of Blondie, The Ramones, Richard Hell and Bob Geldof have all cited this hyper-charged blues punk record as influential on their work: The Jam covered ‘Cheque Book’ in their pre-fame days and you can spot a copy of it on the sleeve of The Style Council’s 1985 album ‘Our Favourite Shop’. Gaining a reputation as one of the most exciting acts on London’s pub rock circuit, Dr Feelgood released their debut album ‘Down By The Jetty’ in 1974. It was a smart yet confrontational and adrenalised persona which would eventually influence John Lydon, Suggs and all manner of post-punk pop barkers.Ĭredit: Colin Fuller/Redferns/Getty Images ![]() He cut an eye-catching figure onstage too, jerking and jolting around stages in black suit and pudding bowl haircut, firing riffs from his guitar from shoulder height, machine gun style. Having purchased his first Fender Telecaster in Southend in 1965, he’d played in several local groups as a teenager and swiftly rejoined the pub band community as a member of the Pigboy Charlie Band.īy 1971 the group had evolved into Dr Feelgood, naming themselves after a nickname for heroin (or the backstreet doctor willing to ‘prescribe’ it) and basing their vital British R&B sound around Wilko’s songwriting panache and distinct guitar style, inspired by Bo Diddley and Mick Green from Johnny Kidd And The Pirates. His English degree at the University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne included the study of Icelandic sagas and he then travelled to Goa in India before settling back in Essex to become a teacher. The vitality of The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, The Vaccines and Idles, it could be argued, originated at Wilko’s fingertips.Ĭanvey Island in Essex might not be quite as exotic as it sounds, but Wilko’s early life certainly looked to horizons. ![]() Indeed, beyond his immediate influence on punk, Johnson’s stabbing, compulsive chord work bled into new wave acts such as The Jam, Elvis Costello and Gang Of Four and has been dissipated across alternative rock and pop for decades since. And there are a lot of people who’ll say the same. ![]() In the wake of his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in 2012 he set about recording a farewell album with Roger Daltrey (2014’s ‘Going Back Home’), while Paul Weller told Uncut magazine, “Wilko may not be as famous as some other guitarists, but he’s right up there. And, in the UK, Dr Feelgood, the Canvey Island R&B pub rockers whose driving energy and subversive attitude fed into the punk movement, and whose legendary guitarist Wilko Johnson died today (November 23) some ten years after doctors had given him mere months to live.įamed for his choppy, percussive guitar style and trademark ‘duckwalk’ stage move, Johnson was a much-loved figure within the music world. Iggy Pop, The MC5, the New York Dolls, The Modern Lovers. For a genre that seemed to roar out of nowhere, punk had many fathers. ![]()
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