8/4/2023 0 Comments Wilko johnson videos![]() The band’s 1975 debut, Down By The Jetty, initially received underwhelming reviews as critics struggled to reconcile Dr Feelgood’s recorded sound with the excitement of their stage shows, but opinions were quickly revised as the album’s impact took root. It’s often claimed that the more extreme excesses of prog were brought into line when punk exploded onto the scene, but I suspect that punk would never have got a look-in if Dr Feelgood hadn’t been so effective in rolling that particular wicket.Īfter the sweaty gigs, a string of peerless albums followed. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine, from the perspective of December 2022, quite what an impact Dr Feelgood – and particularly Lee and Wilko – had upon a music scene that was becoming ever-more stagnated and submerged in proggy self-indulgence. The Pub Rock scene of the early-to-mid 1970s provided the ideal incubation environment for Dr Feelgood’s gritty, back-to-basics fare, and they flourished, breaking out soon enough onto the period’s vibrant college gig circuit and, once we’d got over the shock, they took off like a space rocket. Wilko had dabbled with guitar since the mid-sixties, playing in local R&B bands and, in 1971, he linked up with vocalist Lee Brilleaux and bassist John B Sparks to form the Pigboy Charlie Band, the outfit that would soon evolve into Dr Feelgood. And, by the way, I’ve always viewed his transformation from plain ol’ John Wilkinson to Wilko Johnson as an early example of the way that Wilko was able to use simplicity to achieve memorable effect. After graduating from Newcastle University, where he had studied English, he followed the hippy trail to India and Nepal, before returning to his hometown to teach English. John Andrew Wilkinson was born on 12th July 1947 in Canvey Island, Essex. On the evening of 22nd August that year, they were second on the bill to Hawkwind and they, almost literally, blew the cosmic explorers into an orbit that they never truly ever escaped from. The next time I saw Dr Feelgood was at the 1975 Reading Festival. We soon learned, however, and so did audiences all around the country. Most of us couldn’t compute what we’d just seen and the audience reaction that evening was, in the light of what Dr Feelgood soon became, surprisingly muted. We’d just been given a glimpse of the future although, at first, we didn’t quite see it in those terms. There was no noodling from this band – the menu was straight-ahead sweaty rhythm and blues. But when Dr Feelgood hit the stage, led by a singer clad in a white suit that was, even at that early stage in the band’s career, beginning to show signs of the sweat-and-transit-van staining for which it later became notorious and a guitarist who, to be quite honest, looked like he had been beamed down from another universe, such was his unconventional appearance, manic stare and incomprehensible style and movement – well: we were, as we say up north, Gobsmacked. The evening had started in the usual manner support act Rudi Tchaikovsky, had ticked all the boxes: Long hair Effects-laden guitar solos Complex arrangements Keyboard noodling “Intelligent” dialogue with the audience and so on. Wilko entered my life on Saturday, 12th October 1974, when Wilko’s band, Dr Feelgood, rocked up (and I MEAN Rocked…) at Bolton Institute of Technology to deliver a show that left us astounded, confused and questioning the values that we had, up until that point, taken for granted. A guitarist with a unique style – he always eschewed the use of a plectrum, preferring instead to achieve his signature choppy sound using his fingers – he bucked expectations right from the start by adopting a pudding basin hairstyle, wearing a dark suit and electrifying the stage with his jerky, robotic movements at a time when the rock guitarist’s uniform included long hair (shoulder-length at least…), brightly coloured clothing and a reverential lack of movement. “The One and Only…” is a phrase that is, perhaps, banded around rather too liberally when we speak about musicians that we admire or even love, but, in Wilko’s case, it’s a description that is entirely appropriate. Like everyone with a love of great music, At The Barrier was deeply saddened when the news broke on 21st November that the one and only Wilko Johnson had passed away. ![]()
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