John Graham Mellor, known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British singer, musician and songwriter.
61 Facts About Joe Strummer
2.
Joe Strummer was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash, formed in 1976.
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Joe Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in Ankara, Turkey on 21 August 1952, the son of a Scottish mother and English father.
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Joe Strummer's mother, Anna Mackenzie, was the daughter of a crofter and was born and raised in Bonar Bridge; she later became a nurse.
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Joe Strummer's father, Ronald Ralph Mellor MBE, was born in the Indian city of Lucknow, India, where his own father worked as a railway official, and became a clerical officer who later attained the rank of second secretary in the foreign service.
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Joe Strummer developed a love of rock music listening to records by Little Richard, the Beach Boys and Woody Guthrie.
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Joe Strummer was into the occult and he used to have these deaths-heads and cross-bones all over everything.
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Joe Strummer did not study at Newport College of Art, but met up with college musicians at the students' union in Stow Hill and became the vocalist for Flaming Youth, before renaming the band the Vultures.
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In 1974, the band fell apart and Joe Strummer moved back to London, where he met up again with Dogg.
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Joe Strummer was a street performer for a while and then decided to form another band with his roommates called the 101ers, named after the address of their squat at 101 Walterton Road in Maida Vale.
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In 1975, he stopped calling himself Woody Mellor and adopted the stage name Joe Strummer, subsequently insisting that his friends call him by that name.
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The surname "Joe Strummer" apparently referred to his role as rhythm guitarist in a self-deprecating way.
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Joe Strummer was the lead singer of the 101ers and began to write original songs for the group.
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Sometime after the show, Joe Strummer was approached by Bernie Rhodes and Mick Jones.
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Jones was from the band London SS and wanted Joe Strummer to join as lead singer.
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Joe Strummer agreed to leave the 101ers and join Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and guitarist Keith Levene.
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Joe Strummer determined never again to fight violence with violence.
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Bernie Rhodes, the band's manager, pressured Joe Strummer to do so because tickets were selling slowly for the Scottish leg of an upcoming tour.
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Uneasy with his decision, Joe Strummer instead decided to genuinely disappear and "dicked around" in France.
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Joe Strummer claimed his training regimen consisted of 10 pints of beer the night before the race.
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Joe Strummer said later that this was a huge mistake and that you "have to have some regrets".
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In September 1983, Joe Strummer issued the infamous "Clash Communique", and fired Mick Jones.
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Rhodes persuaded Joe Strummer to carry on, adding two new guitarists.
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The album was panned by fans and critics alike and Joe Strummer disbanded the Clash.
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Joe Strummer was involved with the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism campaigns.
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Joe Strummer later gave his support to the Rock Against the Rich series of concerts organised by the anarchist organisation Class War.
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Joe Strummer later worked with Mick Jones and his band Big Audio Dynamite, contributing to the band's second studio album, No 10, Upping St, by co-writing most of the songs as well as producing the album along with Jones.
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Joe Strummer starred in another Cox film that same year called Straight to Hell, as the character Simms.
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Joe Strummer wrote all the tabs in his meticulously neat hand on a long piece of paper which he taped to the top of the guitar so he could glance down occasionally when he was onstage.
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In 1989, Joe Strummer appeared in Jim Jarmusch's film Mystery Train as a drunken, short-tempered drifter named Johnny.
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Joe Strummer made a cameo appearance in Aki Kaurismaki's 1990 film I Hired a Contract Killer as a guitarist in a pub, performing two songs.
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In 1989 Joe Strummer produced a solo record with the band the Latino Rockabilly War.
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Joe Strummer did the soundtrack to the movie Permanent Record with this band.
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Joe Strummer was asked by the Pogues, who were fracturing as a band, to help them produce their next album, released in 1990 as Hell's Ditch.
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On 16 April 1994, Joe Strummer joined Czech-American band Dirty Pictures on stage in Prague at the Repre Club in Obecni Dum at "Rock for Refugees", a benefit concert for people left displaced by the war in Bosnia.
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Once the power was back on, Joe Strummer asked the audience whether or not they would mind if the band started over.
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In collaboration with percussionist Pablo Cook, Joe Strummer wrote and performed the soundtrack to Tunnel of Love that was featured in the Cannes Film Festival in the same year.
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Joe Strummer covered Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" with Johnny Cash.
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Joe Strummer became a vegetarian in 1971, and remained so until his death in 2002.
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Joe Strummer used the money to buy his signature Fender Telecaster.
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The couple remained together for 14 years and had two daughters, Jazz and Lola, but did not marry as Joe Strummer had been unable to locate and divorce Moolman.
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Joe Strummer was married to Tait from 1995 until his death in 2002.
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On 22 December 2002, Joe Strummer was found dead by his wife at his home in Broomfield, Somerset aged 50, having just returned from walking his dog.
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Joe Strummer was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.
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At the time of his death, Joe Strummer was working on another Mescaleros album, which was released posthumously in October 2003 under the title Streetcore.
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The album features a tribute to Johnny Cash, "Long Shadow", which was written for Cash to sing and recorded in Rick Rubin's garage, as well as a remembrance of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, and a cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song", which Joe Strummer had recorded as a duet with Cash.
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Joe Strummer was instrumental in setting up Future Forests, dedicated to planting trees in various parts of the world to combat global warming.
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Joe Strummer was the first artist to make the recording, pressing and distribution of his records carbon neutral through the planting of trees.
49.
In 2004, German punk band Die Toten Hosen released an EP called "Friss oder stirb", which included a tribute song for Joe Strummer called "Goodbye Garageland"; it is a lyrical co-production with Matt Dangerfield from London's 77 punk band the Boys.
50.
On 22 July 2005 Tait unveiled a plaque on the house in Pentonville, Newport where Joe Strummer lived from 1973 to 1974 and where his first foray into recorded music, "Crummy Bum Blues" was recorded.
51.
The neck profile was an exact duplicate of Joe Strummer's '66 Telecaster, while the guitar's finish was an approximation of the wear.
52.
The first 1,500 guitars came with a Shepard Fairey designed "Customisation kit" with stickers and stencils, which resembled some of the designs Joe Strummer used on his guitars.
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In January 2013 Joe Strummer had a plaza named in his honour, Placeta Joe Strummer, in the Spanish city of Granada, about 650m south of the Alhambra.
54.
In June 2013 a mural of Joe Strummer was unveiled on the corner of Portobello Road and Blenheim Crescent and attended by a number of Joe Strummer's former friends including Mick Jones and Ray Gange.
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Joe Strummer informed Jones that they were going to be used for the next Clash record.
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Joe Strummer's main guitar throughout his career was a 1966 Fender Telecaster that he acquired in its original sunburst finish during the middle of 1975, when he was playing with the 101ers.
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Joe Strummer was naturally left-handed, but was taught to play guitar right-handed by his friend Tymon Dogg.
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Joe Strummer had reckoned his left-handedness on a right-hand guitar as a drawback and claimed it caused him to be underdeveloped as a guitarist, although his style of playing was unique.
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Joe Strummer used three Fender Esquire models, one from 1952, a white blonde with slab fretboard from the mid-1950s and another from early to mid-1960s with a white pick guard and rosewood fingerboard.
60.
Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer is a 2006 biography of Strummer by Chris Salewicz.
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Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten is a 2007 documentary about Joe Strummer by Julien Temple.