With his wiry body, beak nose, bulging eyes and huge mop top hairdo, his concise songwriting and sharp, inventive rhythm and lead guitar playing propelled tough Canvey Island R’n’B combo Dr Feelgood from pub rock to Top of the Pops in the 1970s. But why was I one of the tiny percentage of people they could have done that for? Its very hard to resist the idea that there might be something in playing rock and roll.”īut Johnson’s miraculous recovery from a terminal diagnosis should not eclipse his real story, because he was already a remarkable figure, hugely significant in British music. What actually saved my life is those people at Addenbrooke Hospital. When I spoke to him that year, Johnson told me that music has helped his recovery from cancer. Johnson played with all the bristling live-wire energy of old, pulling gurning faces and jerking round the stage, testament in itself to the sometimes apparently miraculous power of modern medicine even in the face of such a terrifying illness. I saw Johnson play three times after he was supposed to be dead, including a memorable show supporting the Who at the Teenage Cancer Trust in 2015. In April, a team at the Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge removed a 7lb 11oz tumour in an 11-hour operation, that also removed his pancreas, spleen, part of his stomach and small intestine. By then, cancer specialists, baffled by Johnson's survival, suggested there might be hope after all.
In March, his supposed final album charted at number three, Johnson's biggest hit since his 1970’s heyday with Dr Feelgood. I thought, I'll do this, and then I've got to go.” But in early 2014, Wilko was still playing farewell concerts. In December of that year, Johnson recorded an album with one of his musical heroes, Roger Daltrey of The Who. I haven't felt intensity like that since I was young.” I'll tell you what, it's almost worth it. “You are really concentrating on the moment you are in. “To be playing a gig and genuinely thinking this might be the last time, it's a kick,” he told me. By October 2013, defying his doctor’s prognosis, Wilko was still on the road. You’re just trying to make the most of the time you’ve got.”Īnd he did, playing fiery concerts with his super-tight and versatile three-piece combo, featuring ex-Blockheads Norman Watt Roy on bass and Dylan Howe on drums. “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. “To be told that your death is imminent, it gives you a different way of understanding that, it leads to insights.” Johnson referred to his diagnosis as “the verdict”. “We all know its coming but death is something that you postpone to the indefinite future,” Johnson told me when we spoke that year, and he still believed the end was nigh. Given 10 months to live, he turned down chemotherapy and went on tour, displaying an equanimity that made him a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit. The iconic guitarist was rushed to a hospital with a stomach aliment in November 2012, and subsequently diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in January 2013.
Johnson’s brush with death is one of the strangest yet most uplifting stories in rock. And if there is any comfort to be had in that sad news, it is that Wilko beat the odds, making music for almost 10 years since he was supposed to shuffle off this mortal coil. The great British guitarist and songwriter Wilko Johnson has died, aged 75.
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