#Wilko johnson the greystones 16 feb series#

It evolved from a failed attempt to copy Mick Green of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, a guitarist whom Johnson greatly admired. This enabled him to play rhythm guitar and riffs or solos at the same time creating a highly percussive guitar sound.

He achieved his playing style by not using a pick but instead relying on fingerstyle. Johnson developed his own image, coupling jerky movements on stage, his so-called 'duck walk', with a choppy guitar style, occasionally raising his guitar to his shoulder like a gun, and a novel dress sense: he favoured a black suit and a pudding bowl haircut. He later played a vintage 1962 Fender Telecaster with rosewood fingerboard which he bought in 1974, shortly after Dr. In 1965 Johnson bought his first Fender Telecaster guitar from a shop in Southend, Essex, for £90 (equivalent to £1,854 in 2021). It was then that he adopted the stage name Wilko Johnson, a close anagram of John Wilkinson. After returning from Goa, he worked in 1972 as an English teacher. Feelgood – a mainstay of the 1970s pub rock movement. Īfter graduating, he travelled overland to India before returning to Essex to play with the Pigboy Charlie Band. His undergraduate courses included Anglo-Saxon and ancient Icelandic sagas.

#Wilko johnson the greystones 16 feb series#

In 20 he appeared in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, as the mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne.īorn on 12 July 1947 in Canvey Island, Essex, Johnson went to Westcliff High School for Boys and played in several local groups, before attending Newcastle University to study for a BA in English Language and Literature.

And there are a lot of people who'll say the same. Paul Weller said of Johnson: 'Wilko may not be as famous as some other guitarists, but he's right up there. Feelgood were an influence on the English punk movement. Johnson was known for his distinctive guitar playing style which he achieved by not using a guitar pick but playing fingerstyle. He was a member of the pub rock/ rhythm and blues band Dr.

last month.John Andrew Wilkinson (12 July 1947 – 21 November 2022), better known by the stage name Wilko Johnson, was an English guitarist, singer, songwriter and occasional actor. The group headlined Planet Rocktober at Shepherds Bush Empire in the U.K. He continued to play gigs with his Wilko Johnson Band. He announced he was cancer-free and released another album in 2018, Blow Your Mind. All of that doesn't matter.'Ī fan who was a cancer specialist offered to help Johnson and, in 2014, the musician had surgery to remove a massive tumor.

'I'm a miserable so-and-so normally… I'd be worrying about the taxman or all the things that we worry about that get in the way of the real things. 'I suddenly found myself in a position where nothing matters anymore,' he told the AP. He also recorded what he dubbed his final album, Going Back Home, with the Who's Roger Daltrey. However, Johnson declined chemotherapy and embarked on one last tour. He was told at the time that it was terminal. Johnson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012. Lorne Thomson/Redferns Wilko Johnson has died. Wilko Johnson performs At O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire