Goofy
02-23-2014, 02:28 PM
When Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson discovered he had cancer, he recorded an album with The Who frontman Roger Daltrey in a single week: 'Going Back Home'
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/8461/tbzz.jpg (http://img850.imageshack.us/i/tbzz.jpg/)
Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey have made an album together. It’s a combination that immediately makes sense: Dr Feelgood’s stripped back, machine gun R’n’B delivered by the tough, masculine frontman for rock’s most explosive power quartet, The Who. Perhaps we should call this duo Doctor Who, and imagine spinning back in time to the gritty, guitar-charged origins of the English rock scene.
“We’re rooted in the same music,” says Daltrey, still lean and muscular at 69, rock star curly locks flopping around his face, prescription blue oval shades perched on his nose. “It comes out of early American R’n’B but it’s just pushing a bit harder, it’s got an edge and energy that’s totally British.”
“Don’t matter how much you try, you can’t sound like you’re from Chicago when you grew up in Canvey Island,” adds the 66-year old Johnson, slumped next to him: bald, baggy eyed, slack jawed, looking dissipated yet alert.
Going Back Home is an absolute blast – mainly featuring punchy yet heartfelt remakes of original Wilko songs from the past forty years. Daltrey sings with real relish and commitment, while Johnson’s band knocks out the grooves at an aggressive clip. It was recorded in a week in a small studio in Ashdown forest.
“It was very quick, just bang, bang, bang,” says Johnson.
“Well, we were under fairly huge time pressures,” laughs Daltrey.
Johnson explains: “It was a case of hurry up so I can hear it. I mean, blimey, I’m supposed to be dead already.”
Johnson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in early 2013. He elected not to undergo chemotherapy but instead accept his fate, and he played farewell concerts whenever he felt well enough.
“I call it the verdict,” he says. “So when I got the verdict, I came stepping out of the hospital and, wooh, I felt so good to be alive. That euphoria lasted for most of the year. I accept that it’s gonna kill me in the near future, so really you don’t want to waste your time trying to fight it, ‘cause you’re not gonna win. You’re just trying to make the most of the time you’ve got.”
Johnson was told he would be dead by October. “When I went past the deadline, I thought, well, I’m gonna gradually taper down to a state where I’m sitting in my bed in a Victorian nightshirt with a night cap on, all my family’s gathered round me and I’m going, ‘My sons, the money is hidden in the … eurkgh!’” Johnson mimes his own theatrical collapse. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to wind down, ‘cause there’s too many things happening.”
Sitting in The Who’s wood panelled, Persian carpeted offices, enticingly decorated with memorabilia, Johnson and Daltrey keep each other guffawing with gallows humour. The pair had been considering recording together for several years but the project took on sudden speed when Daltrey learned about Johnson’s illness. “I said ‘I’ll sing anything he wants me to sing.’” says Daltrey. “It turned out amazing. You lose all that kind of pretentiousness of trying to do something different, or something new, and just do what you do.”
Johnson admits he is not quite as high-spirited about his illness as he was. “I’ve come back down to my normal miserable self. Of course, I have dark nights of the soul but you’ve got to have them anyway, it’s all part of the experience. The bad thing is for your friends and your family. My wife died ten years ago, of cancer, and I know what it’s like to lose somebody, to see them being taken away from you, that’s terrible, terrible. I’ve had my ups and downs but it’s been a pretty good life, really it would be churlish to complain. To end up making a record with somebody who I gawped at in admiration as a teenager is one of the great rock fantasies, isn’t it? This is quite possibly the last thing I ever do, which is rather strange and fantastic.”
The pair bonded over a mutual admiration for early British rock sensations Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, the guitar attacking style of Mick Green offering a prototype for both The Who and Dr Feelgood. “There was just bass, guitar, drums and voice, so there was space that had to be filled by playing in a different way,” enthuses Daltrey.
“Everyone finds their own way around it,” says Johnson. “Pete Townshend brought a whole new method, chopping and light and dark, explosions of sound in whatever gaps you can find, ‘cause you can’t smooth it over with something else.”
Daltrey has found the experience of singing Johnson’s songs very different from working with The Who. “Singing this was so natural to me. The words and rhythms are relatively simple, there is space to throw phrasing in a million ways. Pete’s writing is full of words that he seems to have dug up in a thesaurus and you go ‘how am I going to phrase this?’ They are incredibly challenging melodies and chord voicings as well, not only in terms of pitch but in energy. If you don’t give it what it demands, you fail. And I had time to live with these songs. Usually, when I record with Pete, I get the song about three days before and I have to digest it. What’s this song about? How do I get that emotion in it? And that can take, sometimes, a couple of months, to really get underneath it. It’s a weird process, it really is. It’s not just a matter of reading the lyric and singing the notes.”
When I ask about the difference between working with Daltrey and the late Lee Brilleaux of Dr Feelgood, Johnson laughs. “Lee used to do whatever I told him.”
“That’s as different as you can get then,” chortles Daltrey.
Daltrey confirms the likelihood of The Who recording and performing again this year. “Pete has made noises.” He doesn’t rule out future one-off concerts but thinks their next tour will be their last. “It’s becoming more and more exhausting. It’s a psychological thing now. Sometimes you think this is a silly thing to be doing at my age. This is totally undignified!”
“You mustn’t stop to think about it,” advises Johnson.
“But then that’s what’s wonderful as well, ‘cause you get up there and this other person comes out who goes, oh f*** it, who cares?” guffaws Daltrey.
“I actually feel happiest on stage performing,” says Johnson. “You step into a different world. All the things in the rest of your life, it’s got nothing to do with that, you are that person on that stage. I do get quite a bit of solace from that.”
“Wilks is a shining example that you can make illness a positive experience,” says Daltrey, a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
“We all know it’s coming but death is something that you postpone to the indefinite future,” says Johnson. “To be told that your death is imminent leads to insights.” Then he laughs loudly. “What use these insights will be to me, I don’t know. Cos I’ll be dead.”
'Going Back Home' is released by Chess Records on March 24th.
Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey will perform a one-off show at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on February 25th.
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/8461/tbzz.jpg (http://img850.imageshack.us/i/tbzz.jpg/)
Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey have made an album together. It’s a combination that immediately makes sense: Dr Feelgood’s stripped back, machine gun R’n’B delivered by the tough, masculine frontman for rock’s most explosive power quartet, The Who. Perhaps we should call this duo Doctor Who, and imagine spinning back in time to the gritty, guitar-charged origins of the English rock scene.
“We’re rooted in the same music,” says Daltrey, still lean and muscular at 69, rock star curly locks flopping around his face, prescription blue oval shades perched on his nose. “It comes out of early American R’n’B but it’s just pushing a bit harder, it’s got an edge and energy that’s totally British.”
“Don’t matter how much you try, you can’t sound like you’re from Chicago when you grew up in Canvey Island,” adds the 66-year old Johnson, slumped next to him: bald, baggy eyed, slack jawed, looking dissipated yet alert.
Going Back Home is an absolute blast – mainly featuring punchy yet heartfelt remakes of original Wilko songs from the past forty years. Daltrey sings with real relish and commitment, while Johnson’s band knocks out the grooves at an aggressive clip. It was recorded in a week in a small studio in Ashdown forest.
“It was very quick, just bang, bang, bang,” says Johnson.
“Well, we were under fairly huge time pressures,” laughs Daltrey.
Johnson explains: “It was a case of hurry up so I can hear it. I mean, blimey, I’m supposed to be dead already.”
Johnson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in early 2013. He elected not to undergo chemotherapy but instead accept his fate, and he played farewell concerts whenever he felt well enough.
“I call it the verdict,” he says. “So when I got the verdict, I came stepping out of the hospital and, wooh, I felt so good to be alive. That euphoria lasted for most of the year. I accept that it’s gonna kill me in the near future, so really you don’t want to waste your time trying to fight it, ‘cause you’re not gonna win. You’re just trying to make the most of the time you’ve got.”
Johnson was told he would be dead by October. “When I went past the deadline, I thought, well, I’m gonna gradually taper down to a state where I’m sitting in my bed in a Victorian nightshirt with a night cap on, all my family’s gathered round me and I’m going, ‘My sons, the money is hidden in the … eurkgh!’” Johnson mimes his own theatrical collapse. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to wind down, ‘cause there’s too many things happening.”
Sitting in The Who’s wood panelled, Persian carpeted offices, enticingly decorated with memorabilia, Johnson and Daltrey keep each other guffawing with gallows humour. The pair had been considering recording together for several years but the project took on sudden speed when Daltrey learned about Johnson’s illness. “I said ‘I’ll sing anything he wants me to sing.’” says Daltrey. “It turned out amazing. You lose all that kind of pretentiousness of trying to do something different, or something new, and just do what you do.”
Johnson admits he is not quite as high-spirited about his illness as he was. “I’ve come back down to my normal miserable self. Of course, I have dark nights of the soul but you’ve got to have them anyway, it’s all part of the experience. The bad thing is for your friends and your family. My wife died ten years ago, of cancer, and I know what it’s like to lose somebody, to see them being taken away from you, that’s terrible, terrible. I’ve had my ups and downs but it’s been a pretty good life, really it would be churlish to complain. To end up making a record with somebody who I gawped at in admiration as a teenager is one of the great rock fantasies, isn’t it? This is quite possibly the last thing I ever do, which is rather strange and fantastic.”
The pair bonded over a mutual admiration for early British rock sensations Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, the guitar attacking style of Mick Green offering a prototype for both The Who and Dr Feelgood. “There was just bass, guitar, drums and voice, so there was space that had to be filled by playing in a different way,” enthuses Daltrey.
“Everyone finds their own way around it,” says Johnson. “Pete Townshend brought a whole new method, chopping and light and dark, explosions of sound in whatever gaps you can find, ‘cause you can’t smooth it over with something else.”
Daltrey has found the experience of singing Johnson’s songs very different from working with The Who. “Singing this was so natural to me. The words and rhythms are relatively simple, there is space to throw phrasing in a million ways. Pete’s writing is full of words that he seems to have dug up in a thesaurus and you go ‘how am I going to phrase this?’ They are incredibly challenging melodies and chord voicings as well, not only in terms of pitch but in energy. If you don’t give it what it demands, you fail. And I had time to live with these songs. Usually, when I record with Pete, I get the song about three days before and I have to digest it. What’s this song about? How do I get that emotion in it? And that can take, sometimes, a couple of months, to really get underneath it. It’s a weird process, it really is. It’s not just a matter of reading the lyric and singing the notes.”
When I ask about the difference between working with Daltrey and the late Lee Brilleaux of Dr Feelgood, Johnson laughs. “Lee used to do whatever I told him.”
“That’s as different as you can get then,” chortles Daltrey.
Daltrey confirms the likelihood of The Who recording and performing again this year. “Pete has made noises.” He doesn’t rule out future one-off concerts but thinks their next tour will be their last. “It’s becoming more and more exhausting. It’s a psychological thing now. Sometimes you think this is a silly thing to be doing at my age. This is totally undignified!”
“You mustn’t stop to think about it,” advises Johnson.
“But then that’s what’s wonderful as well, ‘cause you get up there and this other person comes out who goes, oh f*** it, who cares?” guffaws Daltrey.
“I actually feel happiest on stage performing,” says Johnson. “You step into a different world. All the things in the rest of your life, it’s got nothing to do with that, you are that person on that stage. I do get quite a bit of solace from that.”
“Wilks is a shining example that you can make illness a positive experience,” says Daltrey, a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
“We all know it’s coming but death is something that you postpone to the indefinite future,” says Johnson. “To be told that your death is imminent leads to insights.” Then he laughs loudly. “What use these insights will be to me, I don’t know. Cos I’ll be dead.”
'Going Back Home' is released by Chess Records on March 24th.
Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey will perform a one-off show at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on February 25th.