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Joe
Strummer: An Appreciation
By Greasy Jesus
Joe
Strummer, who sadly died of a heart attack three days before
Christmas at the age of 50, was the conscience and the catalyst
of a generation. His passing has robbed the world of an intelligent,
compassionate, righteous and original voice of protest against
the capitalist world's prevailing social, economic and political
order.
Joe
was the architect and master practitioner of what his old band
The Clash called Revolution Rock: a multi-cultural, pan-global
outlaw rebel music carved from roots rock, reggae, Latin and
even early hip-hop. Largely under the direction of Strummer,
The Clash allied themselves with those who would, as Public
Enemy later put it, "fight the power" in the turbulent
times of the late 1970's and early '80's: not just punks and
anti-fascists in the UK and Europe, but Rastafarians and leftist
revolutionaries in the so-called Third World. This creed found
expression both in the group's original music like White Riot,
London Calling and Washington Bullets and in its inspired choice
of covers like Police and Thieves, I Fought The Law and Police
On My Back.
In
the best left-wing tradition, the vision that Strummer presented,
both as a solo artist and as a member of The Clash, was an internationalist
one. It did not matter if you were white, black, brown, yellow
or green, English or American or Argentinean or Chinese: just
that you had a head and a heart and were down with the many
rather than with the few. But crucially, unlike so many on the
left, Strummer and his group did not dismiss the West or even
the USA outright. They recognised the good things that America
had contributed to the world while still railing against its
imperial excesses. "We weren't parochial, we weren't narrow-minded,
we weren't Little Englanders," Strummer said in Don Letts'
Clash documentary Westway to the World. "At least we had
the suss to embrace what we were presented with, which was like
the world in all its weird varieties."
The
socialist singer-songwriter Billy Bragg said that the first
time he ever even heard the word "Sandinista" was
when The Clash album of the same name came out. Songs like Washington
Bullets and The Equaliser taught a whole generation more about
international politics in three minutes than three years of
high school social studies classes ever could.
After
the implosion of The Clash in 1984, Strummer became involved
in the world of film, composing scores for Alex Cox's Sid and
Nancy, Walker and Straight To Hell and acting in Straight To
Hell and Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train. Although Strummer was
as cool and charismatic on celluloid as he was on stage or on
a record, he decided that the world of acting was not for him
and went into semi-retirement, doing the odd soundtrack like
Grosse Point Blank here and there but basically keeping a low-profile
until resurfacing in 1996 with the single England's Irie alongside
Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Black Grape fame.
Three
years later, in 1999, Strummer was back with a brand new group,
The Mescaleros. Over the next three years, he toured with his
new band and released two albums, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style
and 2001's Global A Go Go, that sounded every bit as good musically
and creatively as the justifiably legendary work he'd done more
than 20 years earlier with The Clash. The strength of the songs
proved that Strummer had lost nothing in the intervening years
and that what he had to say in the new Millennium was still
more vital and relevant than anything else out there. With songs
like Bhindi Bhagee and Shaktar Donetsk, Strummer was still embracing
multi-culturalism at a time when much of England and the West
were at best apprehensive of and at worst hateful towards refugees
and immigrants.
Joe's
only real annoyance with the legacy of The Clash was that a
section of the media and of his own fan base only wanted him
to play the old Clash songs and didn't seem interested in what
he called "Digging the new." The Mescaleros found
it impossible to get onto mainstream radio in either the UK
or USA and sold their records mostly through word of mouth.
Unlike
so many icons in the world of rock and pop, Joe Strummer was
the real deal. When he drove around LA in the classic Cadillac
convertible that he owned, wearing a Sun Records t-shirt and
listening to rockabilly or dub or mariachi music on a portable
stereo, none of it was for show or to try to impress anyone:
it was because that's who he was and how he lived.
I
was privileged enough to see Joe Strummer in person three times:
once with The Clash in San Francisco and twice with The Mescaleros
in Newcastle, England. The last time I saw him was just five
weeks ago, on the 12th of November, and it was apparent to me
then that he was in the midst of another intensely creative
period.
I
came away from his latest show feeling as renewed and revitalised
as he must have felt himself while playing to adoring audiences
in sold-out venues, looking forward to a new year and a new
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros album. Joe had so much more
to offer and will be sadly missed.
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