By Susie Davidson
Advocate Correspondent
SOMERSET, ENGLAND - A generation of punk rock fans were
demoralized last Monday to learn of the death at age 50, by sudden heart
attack, of Clash frontman Joe Strummer.
Strummer’s passing adds to the sad succession of departed
rock stars with an edge who helped blaze the trail away from 70s schlock rock,
including Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders of the New York
Dolls, G.G. Allin, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Ian Dury, Jeffrey Lee Pierce of
The Gun Club, Patty Donahue of the Waitresses, Ricky Wilson of the B-52s, Stiv
Bators, Stuart Adamson of Big Country, Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics,
Bowie backup singer and space-ager Klaus Nomi, Israeli singer Ofra Haza, who
worked with Sisters of Mercy, Thomas Dolby, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Paula Abdul,
and too many others.
The acceptance of early death as part and parcel of the territory
of rock music doesn’t make it any easier to let go of the songs and the
movements which have often paralleled fans’ own lives. The Clash, along
with the short-lived Sex Pistols, provided the soundtrack to a formidable
rebellion which led to a major historical musical epoch (the Clash are set to
be inducted March 10 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; a rumored reunion was
eagerly anticipated).
Strummer, the son of a British diplomat who was born John Graham
Mellor in Ankara, Turkey, got his moniker while busking in London Underground
stations and formed the Clash in 1976 after the Pistols opened for his band the
101ers. Along with Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Terry Chimes (later replaced by
Nicky Headon), Strummer mixed punk, reggae and world beat into lyrics of
social, racial and political relevance, releasing five LPs (two of which, The
Clash and London Calling, have been named to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of
200 Essential Recordings) over a course of five years. Their 1982 song
“Rock the Casbah” broke the American Top Twenty; that year, they
opened for the Who on a US tour. Myriad American bands continue to emulate
Strummer and crew’s three-chord onslaughts and politicized fervor.
Though Strummer is acknowledged to have Jewish roots (he is
mentioned in the JewWho! Rock section), and Jones was Jewish, their ethnicity
was obscured within the prevailing nativistic current of mid-70s England
(Jones, who later formed Big Audio Dynamite, recorded a song, “Beyond the
Pale,” which refers to the Czarist Russian section accorded Jews between
the late 1700s to 1917; the song’s lyrics refer to his Jewish grandmother’s
escape from oppression: "Crossing all the borders through the smoke of war
and rain/Papers out of order on a military train/A coat, a bag, a baby, status:
refugee./These are the people of my family...”). Jones played three Clash
songs with Strummer’s Mescaleros band this past November in London.
“Strummer is the typical Jewish intellectual in rock 'n'
roll terms, passionately torn between the dictates of his head and his heart,
who can't relax if he thinks there's anyone out there suffering,” said
rock critic Roy Trakin.
“Joe Strummer was a great artist whose fighting spirit and
musical vision were destined to outlive him,” said Skirball Executive
Director of NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life Rabbi, and rock
music fan, Andy Bachman. “Just yesterday, my wife Rachel and I were
playing London Calling. What a sad loss."
The video to "Rock The Casbah," shot in a desert near
Austin, Texas, shows a Jew and a Palestinian hitch-hiking to a concert.
“The original idea was to have a Jewish team playing an Arab team at
football,” explained Strummer in an interview, “but unfortunately
that would have been too expensive.”
Strummer starred in two films, Alex Cox's Straight to Hell (1987) and Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989). Following his 1989 debut solo album, Earthquake Weather, he produced a Pogues LP and filled in for the band's ill singer Shane McGowan on their 1990 tour. He formed Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros in 1998, which released two albums, 1999's Rock Art and the X-Ray Style and 2001's Global a Go-Go; a third, following a November tour of the British Isles, was in the works. Strummer recently co-wrote "48864" with U2’s Bono and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics; he was set to perform the song at the Feb. 2 Nelson Mandela SOS Concert at the Robben Island, South Africa maximum-security prison where Mandela spent 18 years.
"The
Clash was the greatest rock band,” said Bono. “They wrote the rule
book for U2."
Strummer leaves his wife, Lucinda, two teenage daughters and a
stepdaughter, along with a legion of international fans who mourn the affable,
profound, genuinely caring, immensely talented trendsetter whose contributions
to music will always continue.
“We'll do what all Jews do in such situations,” said
Rabbi Bachman. “Mourn by remembering the greatness of the man.”