Ask the average rockhead loitering around your corner bar’s jukebox who their favorite guitarist of all time might be, and you’re bound to be buried underneath of avalanche of predictable purple-prosed hyperbole about one six-string noodler or another. Fleet-fingered guitar sorcerers like Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Dave Gilmour, Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani and the like usually garner the most praise. And I’m not knocking those guys — well, fuck Yngwie and Satch -- but there’s no arguing with those other cats. But I’ve always maintained that style is much more important than chops. Anyone can learn to be technically proficient. But actual style? That cannot be taught.
Wilko Johnson of British pub-rock band Dr. Feelgood was not a conventionally competent musician. Ask him to play you some rudimentary warm-up exercise, and he’d invariably stare at you blankly with his tremendous bug eyes. Wilko was a self-taught guitarist, and the manner in which he taught himself was unique. It was simply his own style of playing that owned little, if anything, to conventional guitar playing. The BBC summed it up as "a distinctive, finger-picked style that blended percussive stabs and fluid licks, allowing him to play lead and rhythm guitar at the same time,” which kinda covers it. But you had to see him do it. Augmented with his restless stage presence (Wilko seemed to be unable to “keep still” while playing, insisting on pacing maniacally back and forth, when performing) and his aforementioned bug-eyed glare, Wilko slashed relentlessly at his battered Telecaster in swift, chopping movements. Not only did it sound amazing, but it was truly a spectacle to behold.
I was entirely late to the table on Dr. Feelgood. As an insufferable student of Punk Rock, I had, of course, read all about the band and their origins in so-called pub rock (as in “rock played in pubs,” usually of the vintage R&B style of, say, the early Who), but it wasn’t until Julian Temple’s 2009 film, “Oil City Confidential” that I experienced the genuinely innovative sound of the band. Pre-dating and pre-figuring British Punk by a few crucial years (and also an inspiration to Yank punk stalwarts like Richard Hell), the band — and especially Wilko — was incalculably influential on later distinctive guitar players like Joe Strummer of The Clash, Paul Weller of The Jam and Andy Gill of Gang of Four (among many others). Never mind the unattainably seasoned guitar wizardry of Steve Howe or Richie Blackmore, Wilko Johnson was the embodiment of what would become Punk Rock’s do-it-yourself ethos. And many tried to replicate it, but everyone fell short.
Wilko Johnson died on Monday at age 75, this following a rich life and a bizarre thwarting of cancer in 2014. There will never be anyone like him.
Rest in Peace. Crank this way up….
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