- Culture
- 03 Jan 03
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away
hotpress.com re-runs an extensive 1999 interview with Joe Strummer and lets Brian Young, lead singer with legendary northern punks Rudi, explain how The Clash changed his life
Planet Rock is a sadder, greyer place following the death before Christmas of Joe Strummer. Among punk's most articulate voices, he remained one of the few members of the Class of '76 who never sold out. Despite multi million pound offers Strummer steadfastly refused to re-form The Clash, preferring them to be remembered instead for the eight glorious years that saw them taking the Westway to the world.
Not one to live on former glories, Strummer returned to the fray recently with the Mescaleros and regularly championed world music on UK radio broadcasts. He was in the process of co-writing a song with Bono and Dave Stewart for Nelson Mandella's AIDS Awareness initiative in Africa when he passed away at his home in Somerset on December 22nd. His death robs popular music of one of its most innovative, committed and radical voices.
Read Stuart Clark's interview with Joe Strummer here
Read Brian Young's personal retrospective here
