![]() ![]() album charts.īut the 66-year-old Johnson has never done things quite like anyone else.įrom the first moment Johnson caught the public’s eye back in the early 70s with the British pub rockers Dr. Feelgood, his image has been as unique as his guitar playing. ![]() Mad-eyed and unblinking, lurching/darting/back-and-forthing about the stage, Johnson introduced the world to his own brand of rhythm/lead guitar. Bare-handed and wielding his picking arm like a crazed lumberjack, Johnson proved that one man and a black Telecaster could construct a wall of roaring chords, somehow firing off wailing leads in the midst of it like a sniper atop his perch. You could attempt to look his style up, but there’s no point – Wilko wrote the book.įast-forward to January of 2013: diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer, Johnson was told he would be dead by October – with the possibility of extending things a bit if he wanted to undergo chemotherapy. Johnson says the decision was an easy one: he declined any treatments, strapped on his Telecaster, and started playing as much rock ‘n’ roll as he had time for.īesides live shows (“We did our ‘farewell tour’,” says Wilko with a laugh “Now we just do tours.”), Johnson made the time to record a studio album. Going Back Home finds the guitarist joined by longtime wingmen Norman Watt-Roy (bass) and Dylan Howe (drums), along with veteran keyboardist Mick Talbot and blues harpman Steve Weston. When his day-to-day wellbeing begins to decline he’ll stop performing for good, Johnson insists, adding, “I don’t want to come crawling on to the very last moment.And on vocals? Well, that would be another old-schooler: Roger Daltrey, whom you may know from his years with another band of ruffians, The Who.ġ0 of the 11 songs on Going Back Home are fresh takes on Wilko-penned classics. ![]() “When I’m standing on stage my guitar is actually rocking on this thing, but apart from that I feel fine.” “I’ve got this great big lump in my stomach, which irritates me a bit,” he says. And neither does Johnson, who with his signature red and black Telecaster at hand continues to perform despite the specter of his diagnosis. While it may be the last of his lifetime the album, which save for a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” is comprised of ten Johnson originals from throughout his career, offers no maudlin farewells. Diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer last January he seems to have taken the news as but further incentive to cherish the here and now, embarking on a string of live gigs and teaming up with fellow rhythm-and-blues connoisseur Roger Daltrey on the runaway hit LP, Going Home. Johnson continues to play music for fun just as he did in those early days, even as he approaches his final ones. “We just wanted to play that good old music, and we did and it got successful.” Feelgood emerged with the sort of vengeance and back-to-basics vitality that the punk movement would espouse only a few short years later, earning a reputation as an indefatigable live act armed with raw, ecstatic blasts of rhythm and blues. “It wasn’t fashionable or anything, what we were doing,” says Johnson. Out of the industrial malaise that characterized the band’s native Essex in the early seventies Dr. It was in fact a few years later that again we started a band, Dr. “When I was real young I just played in bands because it was great fun,” says Wilko Johnson, recalling, “It wasn’t one of my ambitions to be a musician. ![]()
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