Wilko Johnson, the guitarist with British blues-rock band Dr. Feelgood who had an sudden profession renaissance after being recognized with terminal most cancers, has died. He was 75.
An announcement posted Wednesday on Johnson’s official social media accounts on behalf of his household mentioned the musician died Monday night at his dwelling in southeast England.
Born John Wilkinson in 1947, Johnson was raised on Canvey Island, a marshy, industrial oil city in England’s River Thames estuary. He studied Anglo-Saxon literature at Newcastle University and labored as a schoolteacher earlier than forming Dr. Feelgood with different native mates.
Joel Ryan
At a time of flamboyant glam and indulgent prog rock, they performed a then-unfashionable model of blues and R&B, wearing low cost fits that made them look, Johnson mentioned later, like “shoddy bank robbers.”
Johnson helped give Dr. Feelgood a harmful edge along with his uneven, relentless guitar model and thousand-yard glare — a glance terrifying sufficient to earn him a task later in life as silent executioner Ser Ilyn Payne on “Game of Thrones.”
The anarchic outfit impressed bands who would quickly drive the U.Ok. punk explosion, and teetered on the sting of worldwide fame, scoring a U.Ok. No. 1 album, excursions of the U.S. and a take care of CBS data. Then in 1977, Johnson walked out amid friction with charismatic lead singer Lee Brilleaux, who died in 1994.
Johnson later mentioned that if the band had been in a position to observe its managers’ directions to behave, “I’m pretty sure we’d be multimillionaires. But we didn’t. We were geezers from Canvey Island. We were great friends, and we fell out.”
Johnson went on to carry out with Ian Dury’s band, the Blockheads, and spent years enjoying to a loyal fanbase, largely within the U.Ok. and Japan.
In 2012, Johnson was recognized with pancreatic most cancers and was informed it was terminal. The prospect of dying unexpectedly revived his inventive energies. He declined chemotherapy, determined to go on one final tour, and recorded a “final” album, “Going Back Home,” with Roger Daltrey of The Who.
“I suddenly found myself in a position where nothing matters anymore,” he informed the Associated Press in 2013. “I’m a depressing so-and-so usually … I’d be worrying concerning the taxman or all of the issues that we fear about that get in the way in which of the true issues. And all of a sudden it does not matter. All of that does not matter.
“You walk down the street and you feel intensely alive. You’re `Oh, look at that leaf!′ You’re looking around and you think, `I’m alive. Ain’t it amazing?'”
In one other twist, a fan who was additionally a most cancers specialist supplied to assist. After surgical procedure to take away a 3-kilogram (6.6-pound) tumor, Johnson introduced in 2014 he was cancer-free. He launched one other album, “Blow Your Mind,” in 2018, and performed gigs along with his Wilko Johnson Band till final month.
Johnson is survived by his sons Simon and Matthew and grandson Dylan.
Paul Hackett / Reuters