Wilko johnson ian dury5/15/2023 ![]() Ian was of course, well, I think he was a genius actually. We did a tour of Australia, and Ian was huge over there - can you imagine the buzz man? The house lights go up, the stage lights would go up, we’d go into Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll - man that was such a feeling. Working with the Blockheads was packed with incident, but it was fabulous playing with them. The time I spent with Ian were some of the happiest couple of years. How did working with Ian Dury influence you? We were putting down something as old as the hills but it was different. At the same time, it wasn’t too much of a surprise, you could tell that people dug this music and there wasn’t much like it about. I remember thinking wow we must have been making it, people who can afford cabs are coming to watch us. But I remember sitting outside the Kensington, this pub where we used to play regularly, and this taxi full of people turned up. ![]() It must have been really exciting when you first emerged? ![]() When we’d been learning to play, we knew what would get people going, whether that’d be Lee shaking his fist or me pretending my guitar was a tommy gun. The whole point of what we were doing was to create excitement. There was no turning your back on your audience. People would come, they’d dig what we were putting down. We got a residency on Canvey Island, every Thursday we used to play. We weren’t looked upon as hip, and this was from people in platform shoes. What was the music scene like back then? Was Dr Feelgood a reaction to what was going on?ĭr Feelgood was just what we wanted to do. ![]() We just fantasised about the place, and it was all wrapped up in the music. It wasn’t the musical influence of Canvey Island, it was the music’s influence on Canvey Island. We played locally around Southend and during that time we brought our thing together. It wasn’t very fashionable back then in the early seventies. Dr Feelgood were a typical local band, four mates into that style of music. There wasn’t much music going on on Canvey Island. What kind of influence did Canvey Island have on you and your music? Yes the first time I started hearing the great blues men - Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddly - when I first heard them, I knew I was always going to love this music. Is that what musically fired you up when you started out? It meant I began learning about the American R&B records that inspired them. Everything about them, they were just so anarchic. I also started learning more about music at that time. Then I got an opportunity to buy a Watkins Rapier, this was a right handed guitar I started learning, even if it was counter intuitive. Everybody at school could play better than me. I’m left handed and when I started playing, I did it backwards. It was the instrument itself rather than knowing anything about music. I was like ‘I want one of these things and I’ll be getting all the girls’. I didn’t know anything about music but was absolutely fascinated by the instrument. What inspired you to start making your own music? It was played on the radio and I went wild. The first record I bought was Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles. What were the first records you got into? We were lucky enough to quiz Wilko on his career, his songs and how he’s cheated death… Now, not only is he enjoying life to the full but he’s arguably never been more successful with both his music, live gigs and even landing a role in Games of Thrones. Given only ten months to live, he threw himself into his music, playing a series of exhilarating gigs and making the top three album Going Back Home with The Who’s Roger Daltrey.ĭuring all this success, Wilko also received a operation, offering him a new lease of life despite all previous predictions. Then in early 2013, Wilko’s career took an unfortunate twist after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was his energised performances that paved the way for them and led him to enjoy success for more than 30 years with Feelgood, his solo band and even joining Ian Dury’s Blockheads. Without him, it’s unlikely that bands like the Jam and the Clash would have succeeded. Performer, charmer, music maker, raconteur - all these titles and more suit iconic songwriter and live wire artist Wilko Johnson.Īs a founding member of Canvey Island’s celebrated, ‘pub rockers’ Dr Feelgood, Wilko had a steering hand in influencing a whole generation of artists in thrall to the primal power of rhythm and blues.
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