The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson.

Following his documentary on the great British blues/rock band Dr Feelgood Oil City Confidential in 2009 focused on the early days of the pre-punk rock band who hailed from Canvey Island (Essex’s very own Mississippi Delta) in 1971. For the uninitiated the group were known for their high energy live performances of R&B material. There sound was centred on Wilko Johnson’s choppy guitar and amphetamine type stage antics. The lead vocalist was Lee Brilleaux, bass guitar John B Sparkes and the drummer was John Martin. This line up was at its peak in the mid 1970’s when their live album Stupidity (1976) reached number one in the UK Albums chart, they also had a top ten hit single in 1979 with Milk and Alcohol. Julian Temple has now made a documentary about the bands charismatic lead guitarist Wilko Johnson but it is not a celebration of the Canvey Island born legend’s life, but a celebration of his impending death!

 

"Dr Feelgood's  sound was centred on Wilko Johnson’s choppy guitar and amphetamine type stage antics"

In January 2013 he was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer and was given a life expectancy of no more than ten months. Turning down chemotherapy he decided to spend

his last days enjoying and celebrating what remained of his life including a never to be repeated farewell tour starting in Japan and continuing in the UK from March 2013. After he completed the tour he announced he would spend his final days recording a farewell album with Roger Daltrey of the heavily Dr Feelgood influenced band The Who.

 

The never to be repeated farewell tour starting in Japan.

This was Wilko's personnel way of facing up to death and in The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson (2015) Temple gives him plenty of scope to explain how his attitude developed and how he faced up to the prospect of dying knowing what time he had left. Watching this documentary you can't help be intrigued by this whole episode. From the tranquillity of Japan to Wilko interviewing himself dressed as The Grim Reaper, from a psychedelic backdrop echoing the effects of LSD to movie clips from Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death and Tarkovsky's Stalker. We also get quotes from Shakespeare, Blake and Thomas Traherne most spoken by the ex English teacher himself. With no future only the past to reflect on Wilko did admit that he did have what he called “dark nights of the soul”. But it was Wilko Johnsons own reflections on death and life that were the most poignant, how he missed his wife who he had been with for forty years before she died in 2004 from cancer. You get some idea how much he still misses her when he tells us that there is no such thing as happiness only different shades of melancholy. He also thinks that love is a bigger mystery than death and that if one is not afraid of dying you can face anything but insists that we have to learn how to die.

 

On stage with Roger Daltrey.

I would assume that those of you that see this movie will already know the ending but for those that don't l would not spoil it for you. Just go and see this incredible documentary that in its own way is both sad and emotional but at the same time up lifting - we all have to watch the tide come in eventually.

We all have to watch the tide come in eventually.

Tommy.

Where do you begin when writing about a musical that sets the bar so high that no one has managed to reach it?  It starts with the birth of a young wartime baby, whose father is thought to have perished in a RAF bombing mission over Germany. When the lad is six his mother meets Frank at a holiday camp, Uncle Frank Hobbs (Oliver Reed) soon moves in with Nora Walker (Ann-Margret). One night while Frank and Nora are making love the boys father returns and witnesses the love making, the young boy witnesses the fight that follows, which ends with Captain Walker (Robert Powell) being killed. His mother and stepfather tell the boy "you didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you won't say nothing to no-one". From that day on young Tommy Walker (Roger Daltrey) hears nothing, see’s nothing and says nothing, in fact he’s now psychologically blind, deaf and dumb. Yes you’re right this is Ken Russell’s truly inspired adaptation of Pete Townsend’s 1969 rock opera Tommy (1975).

 

Eyesight to the Blind.

Both Nora and Frank attempt, via various doctors, to cure the boy of his malaise but without any success. Moving on ten years and the pair still believe that the boy can be cured, this time by taking him to a gathering of the faithful in a church that worships the cult of Marilyn Monroe. To the music of Sonny Boy Williamson’s Eyesight to the Blind a cleansing is taking place where a sacrament of drugs and alcohol is being served under the control of a preacher, who looks remarkable like Eric Clapton and a priest who you’d swear was Arthur Brown. When that does not work the next stop is a visit to the Acid Queen (Tina Turner) a prostitute who administers LSD, she sends Tommy on a ‘trip’ of a lifetime but still it does not bring back his senses. After a couple of unsavoury episodes involving a Cousin Kevin (Paul Nicholas) and an Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon) and a strange occurrence in a scrapyard its discovered that the deaf, dumb and blind kid can sure play a mean pinball beating the local champ, a Pinball Wizard played by Elton John who wears the famous giant pair of Doc Martins. This changes all their lives with Nora and Frank cashing in on Tommy’s messiah status. I could go on with the story but I think you’ve got the idea, suffice to say the scene with the inspirationally cast Ann-Margret and the beans is worth your admission money all by its self. Russell said that this scene was a revenge parody of real life TV advertisements he had directed early in his career!

 

The Acid Queen.

The movie deals with some pretty serious matters like the cult of fame, drugs, and prejudice towards the disabled and sexual abuse. I first saw this film on release but I must admit I’d forgotten how good it was, seeing it recently on a rare screening on the BBC. The film has no dialogue at all, its narrative is carried solely by the words and music of Townsend and the Who and the episodic cinematography directed with great flair and imagination by Russell.  This combination of the eccentricities of Townsend’s writing and Ken Russell direction show how modern day musical’s should be made, with class and that slightly off kilter humour that the director is famous for rather than the dull conformity that appeases the majority of the culturally dead masses who revel in the mediocrity of such films as Mamma Mia (2008).

Ken we really miss you -  more than ever these day’s.