Having played here in 2016, Wilko will duck-walk his way back to The Civic Hall to headline the second night of the Cottingham Folk Festival on Friday August 24th. Also featuring Dylan Howe on drums, the trio have become one of the most exciting r’n’b bands in the world today. With this economic sound, coupled with that black-suited, scowling look, and the yards he covered across the stage pausing only to twist the guitar lead out from under his feet, Wilko became one of the guitar heroes of the era.įollowing a stint with Ian Dury & The Blockheads in the 80′s he eventually formed The Wilko Johnson Band with ex-Blockhead Norman Watt-Roy on bass.
This allows for chords and lead to be played at the same time, giving a fluency and a distinctive sound very unlike the cleaner swat of a pick. Heavily influenced by Mick Green, Wilko employs a finger-style, chop-chord strumming action (the ‘stab’, as he describes it). We were against the grain.” Which, for this lover, fighter, survivor and uproarious storyteller, would seem to be par for the course.Following Wilko’s cancer recovery, the original Dr Feelgood guitarist has enjoyed a rousing return to the live arena recently, including playing a sold out show at The Royal Albert Hall to mark his 70th birthday. They were all wearing frocks and singing about going to Mars, and we were… not doing this. Man, theres nothing like being told youre dying to make you feel alive. “We were not playing what was the happening thing. Dont You Leave Me Here: My Life May 26, 2016. Rejecting slickness and sophistication was part of the appeal of Dr Feelgood, though it ran counter to the fashion of the day. “’We’ll let Wilko have his way, and it will fail….’ It went straight to number one. “When people come and see us play, they hear bum notes – so that’s what you hear on the record.” The label conceded. When the band made its 1976 live album Stupidity, Johnson insisted against the wishes of the record label that it retain some raw edges. Genuine dropped aitches!” The value of keeping things a little rough held true once he had established a career as a musician, playing guitar and songwriting with the pub rock band Dr Feelgood. “They might have had a go at me at grammar school, but when I got to university, I was a star. A working class boy from Canvey Island, Essex, he faced early mockery for his accent – only to find himself prized by earnest lefty peers further down the line. Johnson had experienced twists and turns before.
It started with a death sentence and ended with a gold disc…”
“It was an extraordinary year: so many twists and turns. “A year had gone by and I was not dead… Something strange was going on here.” The album, meanwhile, was a hit. Radical surgery – the removal of a tumour that weighed more than three kilograms, along with a considerable percentage of Johnson’s internal organs – succeeded in leaving him cancer-free. “It was as if he was telling me something I’d known all my life.” And he held out no hope whatsoever: “If there’s only so much time left, I’m not going to waste any of that time trying to find a miracle cure.” Instead, he went on a farewell tour and recorded what he assumed would be a final album. When his doctor told him in 2013 that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, he felt a deep sense of resignation. Both of these towering figures are now deceased but Johnson himself, to his own great surprise, lives on. A wiry, mercurial presence with a florid turn of phrase, Johnson spoke intensely of his hatred for his father (“Stupid, ignorant, uneducated, violent…”) and of his deep love for his childhood sweetheart and wife of forty years, Irene (“She really was an exceptional person – speak to anyone who knew her”). STORIES OF STRIFE AND SURVIVAL WITH WILKO JOHNSONĮmotional extremes characterised a chat between famed musician Wilko Johnson and DJ Vic Galloway – and that was before they even got to the devastating cancer diagnosis that forms the main subject of his memoir, Don’t You Leave Me Here.
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