After pursuing an interest in Anglo-Saxon literature at Newcastle University, he satisfied a standard hippy yearning by travelling extensively around India. Feelgood offered few signs that Johnson would become a godfather of punk. It was the resulting intensity, rather than the blues riffs themselves that subsequent punk players were drawn to. His “own way” involved an acceleration of speed, no doubt driven by the copious amounts of amphetamines he ingested during the ‘70s. But I’ve got my own way of doing it,” Wilko later reflected (“Wilko”). Feelgood took their name from a song the Pirates had covered and included a cover of Green’s “Oyeh!” on their debut Jetty album. Green’s playing showed the young aspirant how one guitarist could sound like two by integrating brief solo licks into the gaps of staccato rhythm playing. Jagged and frenetic, Johnson’s style emerged from listening to Mick Green of the late ‘50s/early ‘60s British combo Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. A new generation of guitar heretics and anti-heroes was paying attention. Nothing could have sounded further from the rock “god” theatrics of contemporaries like Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Brian May. Cutting through their tight, barren rhythm section was Wilko’s Fender Telecaster, emitting elemental blues-based patterns via a simple tube amp. In that subtraction, the band added speed and unadorned rawness. Feelgoods stripped rock and R&B down to its bare bones, leaving only a skeletal sound that time and technology had seemingly bypassed. Johnson began to cut back on his concert appearances in 1999, but still found the wherewithal to cut Live in Japan 2000 the following year.When Stupidity hit the top of the British album charts during punk’s breakout year, 1976, it was apparent that a new spirit was in the air, and it was out of step with the pop gloss of glam and the complexity of prog that then ruled Britannia’s rock waves. In 1998, Johnson finally had the opportunity to release another album, Going Back Home for Mystic. The latter was the first recording with his new regular group the Wilko Johnson Band, which featured Watt-Roy and drummer Salvatore Ramundo, and remained a concert fixture around England for the next decade or so. In early 1981, Johnson released his second album, Ice on the Motorway, and two years later issued the EP Bottle Up and Go! with Lew Lewis several small-scale LPs, mostly for European labels, followed over the '80s: 1984's Pull the Cover, 1985's Watch Out!, 1987's Call It What You Want, and 1988's Barbed Wire Blues. The following year, Johnson joined Ian Dury's Blockheads, where he remained until 1980 there he met bassist Norman Watt-Roy, who later became a regular collaborator. They signed to Virgin in 1978 and released the LP Solid Senders that year. Johnson soon formed a backing band called the Solid Senders, which featured keyboardist John Potter, bassist Steve Lewins, and drummer Alan Platt. However, tensions between Johnson and the rest of the group led to his departure toward the end of 1977. The band released their debut album, Down By the Jetty, in 1975 Johnson stayed for two more studio albums ( Malpractice and Sneakin' Suspicion) and the chart-topping live document Stupidity, contributing a number of fine original songs. Feelgood played locally for a couple of years and made their debut in London in the summer of 1973 their distinctively scruffy image and menacing energy soon made them a hot commodity on the pub rock circuit. Feelgood, and quickly became one of their focal points thanks to his maniacally intense stage presence. In 1971, after returning from a trip to India, he joined the band that became Dr. He studied at Newcastle University beginning in 1967, but returned home during breaks to keep up his musical activities. Born John Wilkinson (which he inverted to come up with his stage name) in 1947, Johnson grew up in the coastal Canvey Island area, and played around the local music scene during the '60s (often in jug bands). Feelgood, one of British pub rock's greatest bands, Wilko Johnson went on to a long solo career playing the kind of rootsy, R&B-based rock & roll he loved.
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