Twenty years ago today (December 22nd), the music world lost one of its greatest artists, legendary Clash singer-guitarist Joe Strummer.
The punk icon’s passing in at the age of 50 was unexpected, as he suffered a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Several weeks prior to his death, it was announced that The Clash would be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Class of
And just a week after the Rock Hall announcement, fans at a London benefit for firefighters were pleasantly surprised when Clash bandmate Mick Jones jumped onstage to join Strummer for three songs to end the show — “Bankrobber,” “White Riot” and “London’s Burning.” It marked the first time the two performed together since Jones’ last Clash show in
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Consequence recently caught up with Strummer’s widow, Lucinda Tait, who discussed that surprise performance at the benefit concert. “Mick came to the show, but it was not planned that he was going to get up at all,” recalled Tait. “He came to the show, and he literally said, ‘Hold my coat, I’m going up.&r
Outtakes Calling: Inside Joe Strummer&#;s Personal Archives
During the time she was married to Joe Strummer starting in , Lucinda Tait would often hear her late husband at work in the kitchen of their house in Broomfield, in southwest England. “He had a typewriter, an old-fashioned one that would go &#;clack clack,'&#; Tait recalls. “When I went to sleep at night, I’d be upstairs and hear him tapping away at the kitchen table.”
Strummer’s wildly influential former band, the Clash, were long in the rear-view mirror by then, and Strummer had recently formed his latest combo, the Mescaleros. But Tait wasn’t fully aware of what her husband was working on, there or in his home studio, until after Strummer died in December at age 50 (of cardiac arrest due to an undiagnosed heart condition).
“The so-called archives were just stuff that was everywhere around the house and in his studio, and boxes open to the elements in the barn,” she says. “His life was a series of plastic bags. There were journals, endless tapes, his cartoons. He kept everything. He was a squirrel.” Also uncovered were cassettes Strummer would make of loca
"If you stormed in here and said the new record was rubbish, I would probably quit": Joe Strummer's struggle after The Clash
“When big money moves in, big money doesn’t fuck around”.
It’s the autumn of and Joe Strummer is in the kitchen of his Somerset home rapping about the perils of rock superstardom. “I don’t know whether I could have hacked it. One of the reasons The Clash broke up was we saw what The Who were like at the end of their tether. It’s a bad scene. You very quickly turn into nothing. I’ve enjoyed my life because I’ve had to deal with all kind of things, from failure to success to failure again.
"That has made me a better person. I don’t think there’s any point in being famous if you’re an arsehole, or if you lose that thing of being a human being. Because you ain’t gonna be happy living in some mansion somewhere.”
Strummer didn’t have a mansion. In fact, for the best part of the preceding decade, he barely had a career. Shunned by the rock magazines who once lauded him as a righteous punk superhero, he has become reclusive and a little paranoid.
This interview has tak
‘Joe Strummer ’: A Career Spanning Compilation Featuring Rare & Unreleased Tracks Is Out Now
‘Joe Strummer ,’ the first compilation to span Joe Strummer’s career outside of his recordings with The Clash is out now. Featuring 32 tracks and favourites from his recordings with the ers, The Mescaleros, his solo albums, and soundtrack work, the release also includes 12 previously unreleased songs.
Available in a number of limited edition formats, all versions include tracks that have never appeared anywhere before, as well as new remasters of some classic solo Joe songs. Exclusive to all formats is an album of unreleased material including an early demo of ‘This Is England' entitled ‘Czechoslovak Song/Where Is England’, a solo demo of ‘Letsagetabitarockin’ recorded in Elgin Avenue in , outtakes from ‘Sid & Nancy’ featuring Mick Jones and unreleased songs ‘Rose Of Erin’, the biographical and mythical recording ‘The Cool Impossible’ and ‘London Is Burning’, which was one of the last songs Joe recorded.
Punk pioneer, singer, songwriter, recording artist, activist, musical and political inspiration for a generation and mighty diamond Joe Strummer was the most charismatic and p
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