Come Here To Me!

If “Woody” Mellor hadn’t seen Wilko Johnson play with the seminal pub rock band Dr. Feelgood in London in 1974, it is more than likely that he wouldn’t have gone onto to change his name to ‘Joe Strummer’ or start his first band The 101ers. For it was Wilko Johnson’s manic guitar playing with his Telecaster that inspired Strummer to go out and purchase the same brand of guitar and start his own band. Without Dr Feelgood, there would have been no 101ers, without the 101ers there would have been no Clash and without The Clash, there wouldn’t have been much.

Wilko Johnson, now 63 years young, is set to play The Leeson Lounge with (Ian Dury & The Blockheads) bassist Norman Watt-Roy on Tuesday, 28 September 2010. This will be a gig not to be missed. Facebook event here.

Check out Wilko, in black, below using his infamous machine gun/duckwalk combo:

Last year, Dr Feelgood were the subject of Julien Temple’s last film in his trilogy on British music of the 1970’s. It is a prequel to his landmark films about punk figureheads the Sex Pistols in The Filth & The Fury, Joe Strummer in The Future Is Unwritten. The award winning Oil City Confidential (2009) is out now on DVD.

“Dr. Feelgood were like a machine” – Joe Strummer