@@leeinwis To that end, I've been playing Dr. Feelgood, Ducks Deluxe, and Brinsley Schwarz in my college classes leading up to "The Birth of Punk" and you can only get their through pub-rock! Amazing how much I absolutely HATED 95% of the popular music of the 70's, but LOVED so many little sub-genres than got NO attention or sales here in the good ol' benighted USA!
They really were a great band, very tight all working it together, Wilco with his great spectacular guitar, and lee on leads vocals with all that charisma and controlled aggression and of course out of this world Harmonica thanks for influencing me and all those great blues rock sounds !
yep. Controlled aggression is an excellent way to put it. He has a powerful presence, I love how menacing he can be when Wilco is doing something mad in front of him
Honestly, every time I hear these original band performances I'm blown away by The Big Figure, he's doing all the heavy lifting while sitting quietly at the back, no theatricals, just total solidity and rhythm.
MAGNIFICENT A true live band. Look out for the TOTP performance of Lights Out, where Dr Feelgood were promised a live recorded track would be overlayed by a totally live vocal at the attended studio broadcast. Lee sung totally live on the night....then the BBC knowingly played out the previous days' recorded vocal instead 😮
Loved the 70's music, I'm so sorry that I don't remember this amazing talent. Probably heard it in the radio, but in 1975, I was 6 y.o.! But later in my preteens, went back back and listened to 60's and 70's music especially British rock and punk.
😂Rock and roll, invented in America, did not become amazing as it is today, until the Beatles (from England) appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. 😅
Aged fourteen, this group nailed me to the wall. A harmonica Lee gave me after a Cambridge gig went South when I left home at seventeen, also my 'Speed Thrills' badge. Shame. Though somewhere amongst the detritus of my life should remain their autographs, a poster and a programme. One of the GOATs.
yup one of the greats i grew up just a few miles away from Canvey Island and saw them on their local turf The Paddocks ( got my picture in the NME on that one ) and also at the Kursal Ballroom in Southend - amazing times as a 19 year old 🤗
1975 and these guys were already dressing with sleeker clothes and shorter hair that was to come with the punk explosion. As a kid back then, I recall hating the long hair, beards and flairs, so these fellas would have been cool to me. I only heard about them years later though.
I graduated high school in 1971 and absolutely HATED the music that was being played on US radio stations. "Classic rock," yeah right! Wotta misnomer. That forced me to search for music I liked and thankfully I kept finding bands and artists I loved from Big Star to the Flamin' Groovies to Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, Daddy Cool, Blue Ash, Starry Eyed & Laughing and then in 1975, DR. FEELGOOD! I guess there were probably 10 other Americans besides myself who bought an import copy of "Down By The Jetty" which just blew my socks off, and then later in the year, the amazing 'Malpractice" which stayed on my turntable until "Sneakin' Suspicion" came out and replaced it. Wilko was perhaps the most mesmerizing guitar player who ever lived and I'll take him over two dozen Claptons and Pages and all those wankers any day of the week! It was amazing to watch the end of the last episode of the first season of "Game of Thrones" and see the credits listing WILKO JOHNSON! I thought, "Nah, it can't be!" But it was and probably like everyone else who's posted here, I kept abreast of his medical condition and am eternally grateful for the years he still had left in which he had a chance to provide some tutorials and amazing tales from his amazing life. These guys had 3 great albums (and a live one too) in them which is more than you can say about dozens of bands in the so-called R&R HOF. Will Dr. Feelgood ever get in? Right after Graham Parker & the Rumour, Jackie DeShannon, the Honeycombs, and Artful Dodger. I never bothered listening to Dr. Feelgood after Wilko left (I mean, what was the point?), but 48 years later those four albums are still doing heavy duty rotation on my new and improved turntable!
You missed out by not listening to them after Wilko. They did some more great stuff. If you get time, listen to the 1978/79 live album "As it Happens". Gypie Mayo was a great replacement for Wilko.
@@albertjanvanhoek294 I've seen the current lineup several times. Not as good as the Johnson or Mayo lineups but still better than no Feelgood at all. At least they're keeping the music alive. Also, guitar, bass & drums all joined the band 11 years before Lee died so they've got history with him. Saw that 80s lineup lots of times & always enjoyed them.
😂My rock and roll life started in '58 when I heard Stagger Lee by the great Lloyd Price. Also Lonely Teardrops by Jackie Wilson around the same time. 😅
Back in a day (70's-80's), this band made people in Finland thirsty... Live in Tavastia, which is a rock club in Helsinki (Capital of Finland, for you lot) was sold out every time these guys played. The audience was/were completely wasted, no doubt about it. Outscoring every other band when it comes to selling beer & other liquids. This group remains to be the best and most entertaining band of this genre. What a wonderful R&B band, indeed. R.I.P. for Brillo and Wilko.
Just as Van Gogh failed to paint in the style of the Impressionists and was almost forced to develop out of that influence an expressive style of his own, Wilco Johnson could not exactly copy the guitar style of one of the most important guitarists in the UK, Mick Green (of “Johnny Kidd and the Pirates”), so that he developed out of that influence his own highly individual style (with influences as well from the percussive guitar style of Bo Diddley and possibly the "claw hammer" technique on a banjo). “Down by the Jetty” remains one of my all time favourite albums: black and white sleeve and MONO: what more does brillant music need …
If you watch Wilko explaining where he learnt his style of playing he says he took it directly from Mick Green guitarist for Johnny Kidd and the Pirates
