6/22/2023 0 Comments Wilko johnson videosTalking to Temple, Johnson seems like a man whose eyes have been opened for the first time Meanwhile, a motif inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal places Wilko on a sea wall playing chess with Death, reflecting playfully upon the transformative power of mortality. Significantly, Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death proves an alchemical element amid a brilliantly chosen blizzard of clips from FW Murnau, Jean Cocteau, Luis Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky et al (although I could have lived without the decapitated chickens of Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates). In some ways, this companion piece is more universal, its focus broadened from the deconstruction of 12-bar blues to wider issues of the soul. Using scattershot movie clips (a directorial trademark) to emphasise the band’s outlaw status, Temple painted Wilko as a star-gazing seer – a one-time teacher and future astronomer erudite, energetic and electrifying. Temple previously documented Johnson’s life and works in 2009’s Oil City Confidential, a blistering account of the “Thames Delta” blues that once made Dr Feelgood Britain’s best live act. Yet here he was – larger than life, stranger than fiction, and cooler than Canvey Island on a rainswept afternoon. Indeed, Temple’s unexpectedly celebratory film began life as a chronicle of a death foretold, doctors having given Wilko less than a year to live following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2012. It was an extraordinary show, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Johnson wasn’t supposed to be there at all. This is intensely high-yielding, characterful and reflective.“B loody hell, man, I’m supposed to be dead!” Following the recent London premiere of Julien Temple’s latest kaleidoscopic documentary, Wilko Johnson played a sweat-streaked gig at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, strutting up and down the small stage like a berserker, swapping gleeful looks with the great Blockheads bassist, Norman Watt-Roy, machine-gunning the audience with the staccato strumming of his black Telecaster. The deliberative instrumental “ Lament” that’s a musical cabochon of surprising brilliance and our favorite moment of the album… With a slow jazz rhythm and nuances of rock & funk… and enough push and stylatude to get you up-and-dancing in your NHS bed gown. The poetry of “ Low Down” that brings to mind Ian Dury. “ That’s The Way I Love You” - a proper rocknrolla that you can easily imagine on the tracklist of the “ Down by the Jetty” album With a squeezy guitar, boogie-woogie bounce and ever-so-nearly cynical rockadoodle lyrics. The rock-strewn, chippy atmosphere of “ Tell Me One More Thing” with its elasticated bass-notes and puckered ‘n’ eviscerating mouth-organ that’s squeezed so close to the blade-cutter guitar it’s bound to get razor-burn. The album was recorded at Rockfield Studios and produced & mixed by Essex-boy Dave Eringa But I never thought that I’d be the sort of person to write songs about different sorts of real-life experiences until I got sick”.Īnd with experienced blues-men like: Norman Watt-Roy on bass, Dylan Howe on drums, Mick Talbot on keys and Steve Weston on harmonica the result is mature and audacious. Speaking about the first sets of lyrics that he’d written in three decades Wilko says: “ It’s tricky when you get to seventy years old, because what am I supposed to be singing? “I love you, baby, but you done me wrong?” Come on! That’s kind of a problem. So, with a slanderous guitar - and an oxidizing blues harp that crumbles around it like a narcotic pill - “ Marijuana” is not only an effective compound, but also a puff of restoratively smoky air. Only a man who has stared death in the face can laugh so blatantly at its stalking presence. On the first single from the album: “ Marijuana” he mocks approaching death, despises the misery of the ward and jokes about palliative care he’s offered. High-yielding, characterful & reflective…. WILKO JOHNSON’S brand new album “ Blow Your Mind” his first in 30 years, is available now.ĭescribing the record as ‘ The album I never thought I’d get to write…’ Wilko refers to the trials and tribulations that he faced over five years and left him with songs like “ Take It Easy” that deal directly with the terminal diagnosis he was then given.
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