![]() The musician, songwriter and sometime actor has watched with amazement as a planned tour of farewell concerts sold out and interest has surged in almost anything he has touched, including the 2009 award-winning documentary “Oil City Confidential.” The musician, songwriter and sometime actor has watched with amazement as a planned tour of farewell concerts sold out and interest has surged in almost anything he has touched, including the 2009 award-winning documentary "Oil City Confidential." Photograph taken on February 1, 2013. Johnson, cult guitarist from 1970s beat band Dr Feelgood and herald of English punk rock, is on a high - even though he is dying of pancreatic cancer. Wilko's new memoir, 'Don't You Leave Me Here' was published in Spring 2016 via Little, Brown.Musician Wilko Johnson poses for a photograph at his home in Westcliff - on- sea, Essex, southern England February 1, 2013. The film would become quite the hit, captivating audiences whether they saw it on the big screen or on BBC 4, and earning a 'Kermode' award in 2016. ![]() ![]() In 2015, Wilko and Julien Temple teamed up again for the documentary 'The Ecstasy Of Wilko Johnson,' a film, which explored Wilko's diagnosis of terminal cancer, and the unexpected reprieve that followed. The pair decided to work on the album together not just because they were both huge fans of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, but because, as Wilko was still believed to be dying from cancer, it was believed that they'd 'better get on with it.' He appeared in 4 episodes shown in 20.Ģ014 saw the release of the hit album 'Going Back Home,' Wilko Johnson's collaboration with Roger Daltrey, which went to Number 3 in the UK album charts. His career took another twist in 2010, when he was offered an acting part in the hit series Game of Thrones, playing the role of mute executioner Ilyn Payne. But it was when Julien Temple's award winning Oil City Confidential came out in 2009, with Wilko emerging as the film's star, that the world once again sat up and paid attention to his extraordinary talent. Dr Feelgood had four successful albums in Wilko's time, followed a busy creative period playing in an early incarnation of the Wilko Johnson Band, the Solid Senders, before he joined Ian Dury's band The Blockheads, in 1980.Īll through the '80s, '90s and into the new millennium he continued to gig in the UK, Europe and Japan. His influence was felt in bands up and down the country, and later in the emergent punk revolution ( Joe Strummer of the Clash bought a Tele after seeing Wilko play). Throughout the mid-70s, Wilko duck-walked his way across countless stages and venues in the UK with Dr Feelgood in the vanguard of the pub rock movement, performing the gutsy down-to-earth rock and roll that was a welcome antidote to prog-rock. Wilko was lured into music by his first Fender Telecaster, bought from a music store in Southend, Essex and soon became the strutting, grimacing, six-string rhythmic powerhouse behind Lee Brilleaux in Dr Feelgood. It's actually quite a cheerful one, too!" Producer Dave Eringa puts it succinctly, " I never expected to be making another Wilko Johnson album after 'Going Back Home' but what a pleasure & a privilege it was to be able to capture Wilko's first new songs for 30 years! He is one of music's true gentleman - literate, intelligent, and articulate but still rock'n'roll as f***!"ĪBOUT WILKO JOHNSON: Born on Canvey Island in 1947, Wilko studied English at Newcastle University before doing a bit of travelling and had aspirations to be a teacher before rock and roll came calling. One of those songs, that's a reflection of that time, about sitting around the house at night knowing that death's coming we've recorded it, and it'll be on the album. On going back into the studio after everything that he'd been through, Wilko has this to say about the 12 tracks that make up 'Blow Your Mind,' " I didn't really intend to ever use them and, obviously, I didn't know if I'd ever get back into the studio. The introspection of some of the tracks on the album is more than balanced out by the good time upbeat party feel of the title track, Beauty and I Love The Way You Do that have the urgency of Wilko's earliest work with Dr Feelgood. Anyone expecting that Wilko's particular brand of R&B to be softened by such heartfelt lyrics is in for a surprise, if anything his guitar style of 't he chop' as he calls it, is even more aggressive.
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